Tony Becca

Jamaica are preparing for what is expected to be a strong challenge for the Carib Beer regional four-day titles next year and, after winning the KFC one-day limited-overs crown, they must be a good bet, not only to make a strong challenge, but also a successful one.

One reason for that is this: apart from a decent batting line-up, based on their performance in the one-day tournament, apart from a brilliant fielding team, and apart from Jerome Taylor and Daren Powell, who will miss the first part of the tournament while in South Africa with the West Indies team, Jamaica boast a formidable bowling attack.

Good pace bowlers

Apart from the injured Jermaine Lawson and Andrew Richardson, Jamaica possess some good pace bowlers in the likes of Jowayne Robinson, Dwight Stewart, left-hander Krishmar Santokie and medium-pacer David Bernard Jnr., and led by left-arm wrist spinner Andre Dwyer, and including another left-arm wrist spinner in Dave Bulli, left-arm orthodox Nikita Miller, off-spinner Bevan Brown, and right-arm leg-spinner Odean Brown, they also boast some fairly good spin bowlers.

Also in the hunt for a place as one of Jamaica's bowlers in January, however, and one who could really make a difference in the fortunes of the team, is Andre Russell - the 19-year-old Jamaica Youth representative out of St. Catherine Cricket Club who represented Jamaica in one match last season, who, as a schoolboy, kept goal for the Clarendon College daCosta Cup team, and who, on Thursday, while bowling fast at Sabina Park in one of the national trial matches, took an amazing four wickets in four deliveries.

And it was amazing not only because four wickets in four deliveries is so rare that despite the fact that a number of hat-tricks (three in three), a number of three in four, and three four in five are recorded in Test match statistics, not only because the record shows only 35 such accomplishments in the long history of first-class cricket, and not only because there is no record of anyone ever taking four wickets in four deliveries in recognised local cricket.

Although, A. K. Walker, bowling for Nottinghamshire versus Leicestershire at Grace Road in 1956, took a wicket with the last ball of Leicestershire's first innings and then returned to claim the first three with the first three deliveries of the second, Russell's feat was amazing because it wiped off the top of Tamar Lambert X1's first innings on the first day of the trial match.

Most hat-tricks, three in four performances or whatever, usually includes the wicket of at least one tail-ender.

Sent them reeling

On Thursday, however, in his fifth over, in the space of six minutes in the first hour of the day's play, and with Lambert's X1 cruising along at 29 without loss, Russell sent them reeling to 29 for four with the departed batsmen being Lorenzo Ingram, Shaun Findlay, Wavell Hinds, and Lambert himself.

Dropping the ball on a spot and getting it to move off the seam, Russell, a brilliant fielder to his own bowling, sent back Ingram, a left-handed Jamaica batsman batting at number two, caught by wicketkeeper Carlton Baugh Jr. for seven, Findlay, a left-handed Jamaica batsman batting at number three, caught by Donovan Pagon in the slips, Hinds, a left-handed Jamaica and West Indies batsman batting at number four, caught by Pagon in the slips, and then, with the fourth delivery of the over, he ended a fairytale spell by bowling Lambert, a Jamaica batsman batting at number five.

In finishing with five for 49, Russell's feat may not have been as brilliant as that of England's off-spinner Pat Pocock who, in 1972 while bowling for Surrey against Sussex at Eastbourne, took four wickets in four deliveries and went on, in the same innings, to take five in six, six in nine, and seven in 11 for a still standing world record.

And it may not have been as staggering as Albert Trott's performance at Lord's in 1907 when, playing for Middlesex, the Australia and England Test cricketer who became an umpire and then shot himself at age 41, took a hat-trick and then four wickets in four deliveries in the same innings of that match - his benefit match.

To remember and cherish

Russell

In knocking off four of the top five batsmen in a national trial match within the first hour of play, however, in knocking off four first-class batsmen, including three left-handers, so quickly, and in knocking them off in four successful deliveries with one going caught by the wicketkeeper, two going caught in the same position in the slips, and one going bowled, Russell's length, and line, and when it comes to using the ball, to moving the ball, his skill must have been top class.

In fact, the result suggests that it must have been a performance near to perfection - a performance to remember and to cherish.