Windward's Intermediate side secured their position in the BCA Intermediate competition finals against Yorkshire Sports Club, when their match against the Barbados Defence Force was declared a draw on December 17th. Having won the first innings with 204 all out, a lead of just 26 runs, and BDF declaring with 231 for 4 in their second innings, the Lucas Street Lads required 206 runs to win, but a draw would see them go through to the final round, having secured the first innings lead. Opening the batting for the Windward side were the pair of Kastun Stoute and Alan Branch who faced tight bowling from Damien Farley and Devon Carrington in the opening overs. Branch was first to be returned to the dressing room with just 2 runs in his account, having been caught behind. Naje Bishop failed to get off the mark being caught and bowled by Farley on the first ball he faced, and the scoreboard reading 5 runs for 2 wickets, bringing Latrell "Buffy" Greenidge to the middle to join Stoute. This pair managed to add 21 runs to the score, when Stoute was Run Out, Greenidge having driven the ball back towards the bowlers end, and the bowler touching the ball onto the stumps, with Stoute out of the crease. Vice Captain Shakeem Blades strode out of the clubhouse with a look of determination, knowing that 180 runs with 7 wickets in hand was not a good position to be in so early against his former team. Unfortunately the Greenidge/Blades partnership produced one more run, before Greenidge was bowled with 9 runs to his credit, bringing Ronaldo "Callie" Callender to the crease. Blades and Callender set about slowly adding to the score whenever an errant BDF ball permitted, with Callie having scored 32 runs when he was caught, bringing Jafari Toppin in to join Blades in the middle, the score now 76/5. The BDF attack showed no signs of easing, when Blades' wicket was next to fall, being caught by Rico Hurley having 35 runs from 84 balls faced, the score now 111/6, with approximately 1 hour of daylight remaining. Lamar Springer joined Toppin, and the pair continued to bat carefully, adding 7 runs to the board when Springer was caught and bowled with no runs to his name having faced 15 balls, the score now 118/7. Rashoun Archer replaced Springer in the middle, and he along with Toppin added a further 50 runs in 40 minutes, when the BDF captain decided to put an end to the game with light failing and the pair of Archer and Toppin not showing signs of giving up their wickets. Toppin ended the innings with 48 not out while Archer had a respectable 24 not out.
Windward will face Yorkshire in the finals at 1:00pm on December 7th, 8th, 14th and 12:30pm on the 15th at the Foursquare Oval.
Pictures from the 3 days of the semi final can be seen in the Photo Album on our website, while video highlights can be found on our Youtube Channel.
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