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By Peter Della Penna in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Ball-by-Ball Commentary

West Indies U-19 vice-captain John Campbell continued his sensational form with yet another century as his team defeated USA U-19 by 8 wickets Thursday afternoon at the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida. Campbell scored 100 not out in 69 balls with nine fours and six sixes as West Indies passed the target of 134 in just 18.3 overs.

“It turned out really wonderful, it’s what we set out to do,” said West Indies U-19 head coach Roddy Estwick about the series sweep. “We weren’t too concerned with the opposition. We knew what we wanted to do and we were able to execute it.”

USA batted first for the only time in the series after winning the toss on a bright sunny morning. Steven Taylor played in his more natural aggressive manner, stroking his way to 17 in 28 balls until he was needlessly runout on the 5th ball of the 7th over from left-arm spinner Kavem Hodge. Cameron Mirza was on strike and pushed a full delivery to mid off. Both men hesitated before committing to a run while Justin Greaves fielded and threw a direct hit to the striker’s end to send Taylor on his way with the score on 26.

The initial setback was followed by two more quick wickets as Mirza ran himself out for 3 in Hodge’s next over. The opener drove a ball back to the bowler that deflected off his hands and settled in between the feet of Abhijit Joshi at the non-striker’s end. Mirza apparently lost sight of the ball and set off believing it had gone past Joshi, but looked on in horror as Hodge picked it up and threw to the keeper Ramon Senior to complete the dismissal. Joshi then drove Greaves to Jerome Jones at mid off in the 12th over to make it 36 for 3.

Amarnauth Persaud joined Greg Sewdial at the crease and the two produced USA’s biggest partnership of the series. The pair showed resilience against Hodge and leg-spinner Donovan Nelson, doing their best to stay at the crease, but they also failed to turn over the strike regularly as the dot balls piled up for USA. The team failed to score a run off the bat for 228 of the 298 balls in the innings, more than 75% of the deliveries. The partnership finally came to an end on 74 off the first ball of the 30th over when Persaud spooned a simple return catch to Nelson for 24, USA’s third highest individual score in the series.

Two more wickets fell in quick succession as Jodha Singh was clean bowled by leg-spinner Amir Khan for 1 after missing a pull shot while Trevor Singh was gone LBW for a 12-ball duck to Khan when he missed a leg side flick after walking across his stumps.

Sewdial built another decent partnership with Pranay Suri, adding 36 runs for the 7th wicket, but his long stay finally came to an end when he tried to hit the off-spin of Campbell for six and was caught on the cover boundary by Jones for 33.

Suri was then joined at the crease by Christopher van Tull, a player not included in USA’s 14-man squad for Ireland who mysteriously showed up on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale to train with the team and was now getting a chance to bat ahead of other players who are going to the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier in Ireland. Suri was when he was caught for 14 by Khan at midwicket to make it 121 for 8 in the 46th over.

After surviving two missed stumping chances, van Tull finally got out to Khan for 5, slogging against the turn to sky a top edge to Greaves running in at mid off. The innings wrapped up three balls into the 50th over when Hammad Shahid holed out to Joseph at long on for 7 to give Campbell his third as USA was bowled out for 133.

Campbell then walked out to open with Joseph but their opening stand was cut short when Joseph was run out for 1. Steven Katwaroo walked out at number three and added 66 for the second wicket with Campbell before he was caught at mid on by Mirza off Taylor for 13.

Image (right) - John Campbell finished the series with 419 runs at an average of 139.66. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

Meanwhile at the other end, the Campbell juggernaut continued to steamroll the USA bowling attack, punishing anything short and feasting on width. His fifty came up in 34 balls and he reached his century with a single on the penultimate ball of the chase. Greaves capped off the week in style on the next delivery, slamming a six straight down the ground to bring an end to the series. Estwick says that despite his team’s dominant performance, they were not even close to performing to 100% of their capabilities and expects them to sharpen things before their next competition.

“We were nowhere near 100% because even when we got 330 odd, there were still 128 dot balls so that’s an area of concern to me because once the standard gets a little bit higher and you go to bigger competition, you can’t really allow so many dot balls so that’s something that we’ve got to work on,” said Estwick. “We’ve got to minimize those dot balls. If we can bring those dot balls in between 40 and 50, then I’ll think that we’ll be near 100%. We’re still dropping catches as well and we’re still bowling the extras that have top scored in two of the games so we’re nowhere near 100%.”

Official Scorecard
USA U-19 vs. West Indies U-19
West Indies U-19 won by 8 wickets
USA U-19 won the toss and elected to bat
Man of the Match: John Campbell
Man of the Series: John Campbell

USA U-19 Innings
Batsman               Dismissal                           Runs Balls Fours Sixes
S Taylor                runout (Greaves)               17      28     2        0
C Mirza                 runout (Hodge/Senior+)    3        18     0        0
A Joshi                 c Jones b Greaves             6        16     0        0
G Sewdial*           c Jones b Campbell           33      83     3        0
A Persaud            c & b Nelson                      24       60     1        0
J Singh                 b Khan                               1         8       0        0
T Singh                 LBW Khan                         0        12      0        0
P Suri                   c Khan b Campbell            14       36     2        0
C van Tull+           c Greaves b Khan              5        27     0        0
H Shahid              c Joseph b Campbell          7        9       0        0
S Abdulghani        not out                                0        1       0        0
Total Extras  23 (0 no balls, 2 byes, 5 leg byes, 16 wides)
Team Total   133 all out in 49.3 overs)

Did not bat: M Patel, P Nair

Fall of wicket: 26/1 (Taylor, 6.5 over), 28/2 (Mirza, 8.2 over), 36/3 (Joshi, 11.4 over), 74/4 (Persaud, 29.1 over), 75/5 (J Singh, 30.3 over), 77/6 (T Singh, 33.4 over), 113/7 (Sewdial, 41.6 over), 121/8 (Suri, 45.4 over), 130/9 (van Tull, 48.3 over), 133/10 (Shahid, 49.3 over).

West Indies U-19 Bowling     O-M-R-W
R Beaton                                5-0-22-0
J Jones                                  5-1-18-0
K Hodge                                10-3-19-0
J Greaves                              5-1-9-1
D Nelson                               10-2-26-1
A Khan                                  10-4-13-3
J Campbell                            4.3-1-18-3

West Indies U-19 Innings
Batsman        Dismissal                                              Runs Balls Fours Sixes
J Campbell    not out                                                   100   69     9        6
K Joseph       runout (T Singh/Patel/Taylor/van Tull+) 1       4       0        0 
S Katwaroo    c Mirza b Taylor                                    13     20      2        0
J Greaves      not out                                                   17     18     1        1
Total Extras   4 (0 no balls, 0 byes, 1 leg bye, 3 wides)
Team Total    135 for 2 in 18.3 overs

Did not bat: K Brathwaite*, R Senior+, S Ambris, R Beaton, K Hodge, A Khan, D Nelson, J Jones

Fall of wicket: 14/1 (Joseph, 2.4 over), 80/2 (Katwaroo, 11.6 over).