The Bahamas holds off Belize

With Belize needing 19 runs from the final over, The Bahamas skipper Gregory Taylor Jr., stepped up to the plate and conceded eight runs as he secured The Bahamas senior men’s national team’s second victory at the International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s TwentyTwenty (T20) Americas World Cup Qualifiers.

The match was played at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua yesterday. The Bahamas won by 11 runs.

The Bahamas scored their highest total of the tournament of 150 runs for the fall of eight wickets in 20 overs in the first innings. They were led by Marc Taylor who is having a great tournament with the bat. He scored 67 runs from 50 balls to win the Man-of-the-Match award. He is second in the tournament with 172 total runs. Also scoring in double figures were all-rounders Kervon Hinds and Sandeep Goud with 31 and 14 runs, respectively.

Belize finished their innings with 139 runs for six wickets. They were led by Maurice Castillo with 59 runs and Kenton Young with 44 runs.

For a fourth straight game, Taylor Jr. won the toss and this time he chose to bat first. Opening for The Bahamas in this game was Taylor and Gregory Irvin.

The Bahamas started off the batting slow and scored 40 runs for the fall of two wickets at the end of eight overs. They had a modest run rate of five runs per over at that point. The ninth over saw the third wicket falling for 41 runs. Taylor was still alive and he was joined by Hinds.

Looking for a productive partnership and the run rate to rise, the duo did just that. In the 14th over, Hinds was brilliant when he hit back-to-back sixes that saw The Bahamas scoring 15 runs off that over. The Bahamas was up to 86 runs for the fall of three wickets. The duo took the run rate up to 6.14 runs per over.

They came back in the 15th over and scored 17 runs and took The Bahamas over the century mark to make it 103 runs for three wickets. Taylor got to his half-century when he hit a six in that over to score 51 runs off of 44 balls.

In the ensuing over, Keagan Tillett was able to out Hinds for 31 runs who had two fours and two sixes. The partnership amassed a total of 73 run. Taylor contributed 36 runs.

Taylor was out in the 17th over after hitting two sixes. His innings saw him hitting three fours and five sixes. The Bahamas was on 127 runs for five wickets when Taylor was out on the last ball of the over.

At the end of the 20 overs, The Bahamas was able to get the run rate up to 7.50 runs per over to finish with 150 runs.

The Bahamas opening duo of Irving and Graham were spectacular in the first four overs. In the fourth over, Graham and Taylor was able to run out Andrew Banner to get its first wicket. That over ended with Belize scoring 18 runs for the fall of one wicket so far. At the end of that over, Belize needed 133 runs from 96 balls to win the game.

Castillo and Kenton Young put up a partnership that saw them scoring 57 runs. Jagnauth Jagroo put an end to that partnership in the 12th over. Belize scored 74 runs and loss two wickets with eight overs remaining.

Castillo was impressive for the Belize side late in the game finishing with 59 runs. He was out in the 19th over going for a shot when he was stumped by Everette Haven on a Hinds delivery. Believe had 130 runs for the fall of six wickets.

In the final over, the Belize side struggled to muster up a boundary as The Bahamas improved its tournament record to 2-2.

The Bahamas have two matches on tomorrow at the Coolidge Cricket Ground. They will play the United States of America at 9.30 a.m. They then play Panama at 1.30 p.m.

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