Melbourne rule again

By Nodley Wright, Staff Reporter

Stewart

MELBOURNE won the Rothmans all-island cricket crown for the second year running with a first innings points victory over Westmoreland at Melbourne Oval yesterday.

The winners collected a cheque for J$100,000 while the losers pocketed J$50,000 for their efforts.

With seven of the 15 mandatory overs to go and Westmoreland hanging on to avoid the embarassment of losing outright (132 for nine), captain Robert Samuels in a kind gesture agreed with Anthony Andrews to call off the game. After posting a challenging total of 241 the previous day and restricting the visitors to 48-3, Melbourne wasted little time in bowling them out.

Chris Miller on 13 overnight added just one to his score before being removed by Conroy Miller with the score on 56. Westmoreland threatened to make a match of it as they added another 37 runs before losing another wicket. This was before man of the match Ray Stewart broke their back with three valuable wickets off nine balls.

Stewart accounted for top scorer Raol Wynter (36), captain Anthony Andrews nine and their most consistent batsman Cleveland Davidson for two. From 56-4 Westmoreland slumped to 96-7. There were small partnerships for the remaining three wickets but the fight was already knocked out of them.

They were bowled out for 137 and Melbourne promptly enforced the follow on. In addition to Stewart who claimed three wickets for 14 runs off 7.5 overs the other damagers were Conroy Miller with four wickets for 30 off 13.2 overs and Dwayne Cooper three for 22 off 11.

Batting a second time Westmoreland's innings went similarly downhill as they lost their first wicket with just nine runs on the board. With 68 runs on the board they had lost seven wickets and were staring down the barrel of Melbourne's gun before Vinord Woolcock (30) and Clive Thomas (38) added 64 runs for the eighth wicket.

Thomas who had six fours in his knock was the first to go with the score on 132. Woolcock, whose knock included two fours and one six, followed soon after and an outright defeat was again a reality. Captain Robert Samuels looking to be in a generous mood spared them.

Ramon Hutchinson with four wickets was the most successful bowler this time with Conroy Miller claiming another three.

Captain Samuels said it was a commendable effort by his team which has played good cricket throughout the season. The victory he said, he saw coming once his openers put on 88.

"I thought we had it from the start that we got from the openers. That partnership of 88 was the highest for the season and once we got that we were confident," Samuels said.

Losing captain Andrews said their batting let them down.

"It is a bit disappointing where our batting is concerned. We did not stick in... 240 (241) runs was a gettable total. We did not dig in."

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