Tony Becca - FROM THE BOUNDARY THE JAMAICA Cricket Association's Supreme Ventures Super Cup competition ended its fifth round of matches on Sunday with Melbourne in the lead on 22 points after three victories, one first innings lead and one point from the rain-affected, no-result contest against Kensington.
With St. Catherine four points back in second place, Lucas, Manchester and defending champions Jamaica Defence Force on 11 points each, and Kensington and St. Elizabeth on 10 each, Melbourne are in wonderful position in the race for the title and with a varied attack and a strong batting line-up must now be backing themselves to go all the way.
It is still a long way to go, however, and with four rounds to come, with Melbourne still to play St. Catherine, JDF, Lucas and Kingston CC, the race is far from over. On top of that, the title will not be decided at the end of the round-robin format.
Unlike previous years, the title, the winners of the $500,000 first prize, will be decided, not by the team accumulating most points, but after two semi-finals and a final involving the four top teams.
INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES
Apart from the fight for one of the top four spots, therefore, with $10,000 going to any batsman who scores a century and to any bowler who takes five wickets in an innings, with $20,000 going to any batsman who scores a double-century and to any bowler who takes 10 wickets in a match, the real interest so far has been the individual performances, and so far the players have been cashing in.
Week after week, in unprecedented performances, the batsmen have been reeling off century after century, the bowlers have been coming up with five-wicket haul after five-wicket haul, and this past weekend was no different.
In a weekend of really good performances, five centuries were scored, five bowlers took five wickets or more in an innings, and that augurs well for Jamaica's cricket especially as numbered among those scoring centuries were two youngsters Chadwick Walton of Lucas and Yanick Elliott of Melbourne.
Also numbered among them, however, was one by Cleveland Davidson the 43-year-old former Jamaica batsman.
After failing in the first innings, Davidson went to bat in the second innings with Westmoreland on 65 for four, and with his team needing another 115 to make Melbourne bat a second time and in serious trouble, he scored an unblemished 107 not out with 11 fours and two sixes and led the visitors to safety at 257 for six.
It was a truly wonderful exhibition of batting. His defensive strokes on a pitch that had become kind to the spin bowlers were out of the book, his drives, through the offside and straight back past the bowler, strokes of class.
It was an innings that was so good that it should have benefited the youngsters on either side.
It was an innings that underlined not only how good was Davidson as a youngster, but remembering that although he scored a double-century for Jamaica, that although he was Jamaica's saviour on many occasions he was never a star, also how good were the batsmen of yesterday.
It was good to see Davidson in action, not only because he defended the class of yesterday's batsmen so well by doing what he did when he did, but also because the presence of good oldsters is important to the development of youngsters regardless of the talent they possess.
