Daraine Luton, Freelance Writer
St. Catherine skipper Tamar Lambert (fourth right) lifts the Supreme Ventures Challenge Shield with other members of his team as they celebrate their success over Kingston in the final at Kensington Oval yesterday. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
ST. CATHERINE yesterday completed the national cricket double and signalled their intent to take the triple crown after beating Kingston by five wickets to win the Supreme Ventures Challenge Shield at Kensington Park.
The 'Saints', who earlier won the Supreme Ventures Super Cup under its new league format, required less than two hours on the final day to win the inaugural Challenge Shield.
In the low-scoring three-day final, Kingston batted first and made a modest 160 to which St. Catherine replied with 175. Batting a second time and hampered by a 25-run deficit, Kingston posted 187, leaving St. Catherine a victory target of 148. The Saints made 153-5, having resumed at 10 without loss on the final day.
Winning captain Tamar Lambert, who made 16 and shared in a 47-run partnership with Keith Hibbert (30), said he knew the game was safe once his team had gone past 100. But the victory that he sensed never came until Man-of-the-Match Bevon Brown arrived at the crease.
When Keith Hibbert got out with the score at 108-5, Brown raced to the wicket and then beat his chest. To show that he was not a 'bag of mouth', he piled up a whirlwind 36 off just 14 deliveries. His cameo included four boundaries and two sixes, the last of which brought the Saints' victory.
TOOK GAME AWAY
"I realised that they wanted to take the game away from us so I went out there to take the game from them, and that is what I did," said Brown, who also answers to the name Lion.
Garnet Silk's rendition, 'When the lion roars', was being played at a low in the background by a sound system operator moments before Brown gave former Jamaica and West Indies off-spinner Nehemiah Perry the long handle, hitting him over long-on before racing off the ground to celebrate with the partisan Saints.
"This completes two very good victories for the club," said Lambert. "It has been a long time since St. Catherine have won anything and for us to come this year and take the double it is a very good achievement."
He added: "We have the one-day tournament starting soon so we have to focus on that. When we started the season we had our eyes on the triple, but we just have to continue taking it one day at a time," added Lambert.
Despite losing, Kerry Scott, King-ston's captain,was proud of his team's performance.
"We played very good all season and getting to the final is an achievement. But if you don't make enough runs in a final, you will always be behind on the eight ball. The season was good, quite a few players got hundreds and almost every bowler got five wickets. The only bad thing is that we don't have anything in the cupboard to show for it," Scott said.
The one day competition - the Capital and Credit Limited Overs tournament starts next week. St. Catherine failed to reach the semi-final last year.
