Royals Fall at Final Hurdle

Trinidad and Tobago beat Hampshire Royals by 36 runs in the Caribbean T20 final

Trinidad and Tobago v Hampshire Royals
Caribbean T20
24th January 2011
Kensington Oval, Barbados

Summary: Trinidad and Tobago beat Hampshire Royals by 36 runs
Trinidad & Tobago: 147-7 (Briggs 2-9, Howell 2-14)
Hampshire Royals: 111-8 (Howell 28, Vince 23)

A balanced, intelligent all-round performance from Trinidad and Tobago meant Hampshire’s young side fell at the Caribbean T20’s final hurdle, losing by 36 runs at the Kensington Oval in Barbados.

Despite a good performance with the ball, which limited their opponents to under 150, Hampshire could never quite hit top gear with the bat.

In the end they were playing for pride for the last few overs having seen a succession of wickets disrupt their run-chase badly.

However, a good performance from Benny Howell (2/14 with the ball, 28 not out with the bat) did show glimpses of a bright future for Hampshire’s young guns.

It was a sad end to a wonderful tournament from which the Royals can take a lot of heart, a few lessons and plenty of admiration.

Click here for a full scorecard

Having won the toss and elected to bat first, Trinidad and Tobago started slowly, only taking ten runs off the first three overs and losing opener, Adrian Barath (2) off the fourth ball of the day. His conqueror, Danny Briggs, looked especially tight, finishing his first spell with figures of 2-0-3-1.

But the loss of Barath only served to bring in Darren Bravo – a player in the form of his life having scored runs for fun so far in the competition. And so it proved here; together with Lendl Simmons the T&T men accelerated with a range of boundaries, gobbling up 45 off the powerplay and 79 nearing the halfway stage.

But then Bravo (41) gifted Briggs his second wicket of the match, sweeping him to Ervine, and was quickly followed by a rash whack from Simmons (31) to James Vince at long off. The youngster claimed his ninth catch of the competition, his colleagues started to claim back some momentum.

Indeed, in the next 8 overs the run-rate dipped to below six while T&T lost three more wickets. Stand-in captain, Denesh Ramdin (33) enjoyed a good 19th over, hitting across the ball to claim three fours in a row but even he would fall off the last ball of the innings. The Royals had limited their opponents to below 150 – a score that has proved to be the benchmark in the competition so far.

Darren Bravo's 41 probably won the match for his team - he finished
second-highest run scorer in the competition

However, time and again we have seen chasing sides struggle in the competition and today proved no exception. Hampshire started slowly - even losing Johann Myburgh to leave themselves 1-1 after 2 overs. Vince came in and played some beautiful cover drives but after the powerplay the Royals were already 13 runs behind on the over comparison, needing to step up the scoring.

But the surge never really came. Vince (23) was clean bowled while captain Jimmy Adams (16) was run out. Sean Ervine gave hope very briefly with a big 6 at just under the halfway stage to bring up the 50. However, once he was caught at deep square leg no one else could really get in.

Benny Howell, whose stock has risen massively in an impressive tournament with both bat and ball  stuck in there to see out nearly half the innings. But even he couldn’t add emphatically to the score.

In the 19th over it was confirmed what we had known for some time, that Trinidad and Tobago would win the trophy they had always been favourites to claim. Hampshire finished their innings with 111 runs for eight wickets. For T&T, the explosions were only just beginning!

- Simon Vincent

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