Jason Mohammed and Sunil Narine saved their best for the Nagico Super50 final and Trinidad and Tobago Red Force skipper Rayad Emrit was full of praise for their efforts.
Mohammed slammed his maiden regional 50 over century, an unbeaten 117 to lead the Red Force to 200 for eight in the final against the Guyana Jaguars at Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain on Sunday night. Narine followed up with his best limited overs figures of six wickets for nine runs off eight overs to dismiss the Jaguars for 65.
While the pair played a key role in the victory on Sunday, Emrit insisted that it was a team effort that brought them to the final.
“Throughout the tournament there have been different players, not just one person standing out,” the T&T skipper said.
Kevon Cooper, Ravi Rampaul and Emrit all had match winning performances leading up to the final while Dwayne and Darren Bravo also played supportive roles.
“Throughout the tournament the batters haven’t really given us the start that we’ve wanted and the final was no different,” said Emrit. “It’s good to see Jason getting some form in the latter part of the tournament and I thought the difference in the game was the way he batted and I must say well done to him, it was a fantastic innings.”
He added: “It was a brilliant knock and you can’t stop praising him for the efforts that took us to the 200 mark, and we knew as long as we got 200 it was going to be game on.”
Mohammed’s efforts earned him the Richard Richardson Award for the best batsman of the tournament, as well as the Collis King trophy for the best all-rounder of the tournament. The right-hander finished with 203 runs and nine wickets.
While Mohammed set up the win, Narine was Emrit’s “trump card”.
“I thought 200 runs on that wicket was not what we wanted but with the bowling attack we have, we can defend anything that is there in front of us,” said Emrit.
The off-spinner struck in his first over to trigger a Guyana collapse, losing ten wickets for 29 runs.
“He’s exceptional, he’s different from every single bowler in the world and he’s someone good to have in your team,” Emrit praised.
With him in your team, any total you can defend. I must say well done to him, he bowled exceptionally well. He’s been the best bowler in the world for some while now and with him in our line up defending 200 runs, we definitely have a good chance.” said the T&T skipper.
“He himself said that as long as we get 200 runs, he’s going to play his part and he came up trumps. The plan was if they got off to a flyer, he definitely was going to come on because he’s our trump bowler, and it happened to work for us this time,” Emrit added.
Narine finished as the leading bowler in the competition with 12 wickets which earned him the Curtly Ambrose Award.
Nagico Super50 Honour Roll
Richard Richardson Award (Best Batsman): Jason Mohammed (T&T Red Force)—203 runs, average 50.75
Curtly Ambrose Award (Leading Bowler): Sunil Narine (T&T Red Force)—12 wickets, average 7.25
Collis King Award (Best All-rounder): Jason Mohammed (T&T Red Force)—203 runs and 9 wickets
Jeffrey Dujon Award (Leading Wicket-keeper): Anthony Bramble (Guyana Jaguars)—10 dismissals
Gus Logie Award (Most Outstanding Fielder): Devon Thomas (Leeward Islands Hurricanes)
