The victorious Combermere High School.
Florida Cricket Academy International Under 19
The Florida Cricket Academy (FCA) concluded its 4th Under 19 tournament under blue skies. Barbados champs Combermere High School (CHS) showed why they were heavily favored with a superb display of great all round cricket coming from behind to take the championship from the FCA. After MCA upset CCUSA on the south field, it came down to C.H.S. and FCA. A win or a close loss by FCA would have them retaining the title as they were ahead by NRR, neither would happen. Combermere H.S. won the toss and chose to bat. Immediately, the CHS batsmen began rotating the strike turning ones into twos. They ended up with 263 for 9 in their 40 overs with a brilliant century (105) from West Indies U-19 player, Justin Greaves.
FCA began their inning needing 210 to retain the title on NRR. They raced away at 10 runs per over in the first 8 overs with USA u19 and FCA skipper Steven Taylor smashing the ball everywhere. After Taylor’s opening partner Atul Thomas got out, wickets fell at regular intervals. With no support for Taylor, he carried on to make 115. The FCA ended with 184 all out in 36.1 overs falling short of the NRR by 26 runs.
Individual awards were presented to Justin Greaves for tournament MVP. Steven Taylor for tournament best batsman and Salman Safi for tournament best bowler.
After a great weekend of youth cricket, FCA President Wayne Ramnarine and tournament organizer was quoted saying” we saw the standard where we need to get too and it’s a long way off. Barbados team was superb with the bat, ball and especially in the field. Take a lesson from what you saw today, you guys can only get there if you’re willing to put in the hard work.”
Roddy Estwick, WICB U19 head coach who also coaches Combermere H.S. was impressed with the FCAs program and will be returning to run a few camps for the FCA players.
The FCA would like to thank our outstanding sponsors Laparkan Shipping, Sea Freight Lines, Palmetto Ford Trucks and Mohamed Halal Foods and all those that assisted in staging this yearly event.
Next years’ event will feature Combermere once again and a high school team from Trinidad.
Scorecards and statistics from all matches can be found on the FCA’s website: http://www.flcad.org/onfield/