Louis Shakes Up Nevis

Jeremiah Louis celebrates another wicket by lying on the pitch

SPORTS PAGE—Thursday 27th June 2013–It’s the hurricane season after all and if you were to say that ‘Hurricane Louis’ tore through Nevis, you would not be far wrong.

It was the Leeward islands under 19 encounter played between St. Kitts and Nevis on Wednesday 26th June at the ET Willet Park.

There was an unsavoury delay, which seemed to have been caused by some sort of miscommunication which resulted in a delay in the preparation of the main square and a verbal exchange of a blame game between Grounds man JABAL Tyson and officials of the Nevis Cricket Association.

Manager of the St. Kitts team, the outspoken Hester Rawlins did not mince words as he coined the situation as embarrassing. ‘Sun is shining and we have this,’ he said with obvious disgust.

As the ground preparation was been finalized, Coach Steve Liburd of the St. Kitts team and Ralph Allen, Manager of the Nevis team, also took time out to chat with the media.

Liburd was quietly confident that his team would do well and pointed to a few of the players who had already made it to the senior St. Kitts team.

Allen for his part also felt that the Nevis had the players with the required ability to do the job for him.

St. Kitts batted first and was bowled out for a miserly 118 in 30.1 overs of the reduced, allotted 35 overs. Jeremiah Louis led the way with an aggressive half century. Burke, Nisbett and Harvey were the main wicket takers.

Some pundits at the ETW probably figured that the match would be over at short notice. However, the chirping St. Kitts team had other ideas.

Louis, bowling at a lively clip, mixing bouncers, yorkers and slower balls with admirable control. He snared Theron Bussue with his very first ball, as he flicked deftly but straight to the man at square leg to be caught for a golden duck. He soon had Bervis Burke bowled, while spectacularly leaving alone a delivery which just clipped the off bail.

Captain Dymon Parris was his third victim in the eventful first over, when he pushed tentatively at a full pitched delivery and was sent on his way, leg before wicket for a duck as well.

Clydre Smithen was the stand out batsman for Nevis. He was not out on 28, like the proverbial cheese standing alone, when Nevis was eventually bowled out for a miserable 89 in 29.1 overs.

Summarized scores:

Hewitt, Hanley and Venner, all got 1 wicket each

Match two will be played between the two teams on Thursday 27th June at the ET Willet Park, while the opening exchanges in the 2013 Primary School Cricket championships, will bowl off at the nearby Villa grounds.