Pollard takes T & T to Stanford 20/20 final

Trinidad and Tobago beat Nevis by 74 runs in the second semifinal of the Stanford 20/20 competition and will now play Guyana in the final on Sunday for the big prize. Kieron Pollard played a blistering hand, scoring 83 off just 38 balls, and was well supported by Daren Ganga, the captain, as T & T put a big score on the board and defended it with some ease.

Stuart Williams, the former West Indian batsman and currently captain of Nevis, won the toss and chose to put T & T in, a decision that was to backfire spectacularly. Although Nevis managed to get rid of both openers with only 57 on the board, a third-wicket partnership of 114 between Pollard and Ganga (62*) ensured that T & T posted 210 from their 20 overs. Pollard with as many 7 sixes and surprisingly only 4 fours, scored at a strike-rate of over 200 and set up his team's innings.

When it was the turn of Nevis to bat they badly needed a solid, if not desperately quick, start, but they ended up with the opposite. Mervyn Dillon and Samuel Badree knocked the stuffing out of the top order, reducing Nevis first to 8 for 3 and then 37 for 5. This virtually ended the match as a contest, and only a fighting 65 from Joel Simmons, the wicketkeeper, pushed the score towards respectability.

In the end Nevis were restricted to 136, 75 short of the target, and Dillon (3 for 30), Badree (2 for 14) and Pollard (2 for 19) shared the spoils. For Pollard, who earlier scored 83, this was a match to remember.