Lord’s (Bailey’s Bay won toss): St George’s beat Bailey’s Bay by 30 runs

St George’s produced a fine display to come away with a comfortable victory against Bailey’s Bay and tighten their grip on the Premier Division T20 KO Cup.

The defending champions posted 179 for six after being sent in to bat and restricted Bay to 149 for eight to retain their crown.

Sinclair Smith, the St George’s captain and wicketkeeper, was delighted with his team’s work ethic as he secured his first trophy since taking over the helm at the beginning of the season.

“This is a special moment for me without a doubt,” Smith told The Royal Gazette.

“A lot of people had a lot of doubt with everything happening this year; players leaving us and whatnot. For the guys to back me and come out with this result more than shows the hard work we have put in, and I am more than grateful for these guys.”

St George’s got solid contributions throughout their order, with all-rounder Macai Simmons top scoring with 58, from 26 balls, and dominating an 86-run opening partnership with Jason Anderson (22), which laid the platform for their formidable total.

Simmons blasted two sixes and 11 fours, including one off Bay spinner Delray Rawlins that raced to the cover-point boundary to reach his fifty off 21 balls.

Bay eventually fought back with the trio of Michael Agard, Rodney Trott and Sharye Tavares applying the brakes with some disciplined bowling as St George’s scored only 24 runs between the ninth and fifteenth overs, losing four wickets in the process.

However, all of Bay’s hard work came undone in the closing overs as St George’s capitalised on some loose bowling to post a total beyond Bay’s reach.

Zeko Burgess led the way with an unbeaten 34, which contained three sixes and two fours, while Detroy Smith (18) and Kevin Edmund (14) also made valuable contributions.

“The first ten overs really set the tone” Smith said. “Macai up front with Jason really set a platform for us. We did slow up a bit towards the middle, but Zeko carried us through to the end.”

Macquille Walker (one for 50) and Rawlins (none for 49) bore the brunt of the big hitting, while it was a surprise Tavares was not brought back into the attack after claiming a wicket and conceding only six runs in his two overs. Agard was the pick of the Bay bowling with two for 22.

Bay got their chase off to a promising start and were 41 without loss and ahead on run-rate after five overs before rain brought proceedings to a halt.

When play resumed, the pendulum swung back in St George’s favour as they bowled and fielded brilliantly to reduce the run-rate to a trickle.

With the overs running out, Bay’s batters tried to accelerate but they lost a bundle of wickets as St George’s kept the pressure on in the field to the very end to clinch a hard-fought victory.

Burgess led the St George’s attack with two for 20 and received solid support from Simmons (two for 22) and Clay Darrell (two for 29).

Wicketkeeper Jarryd Richardson was Bay’s top scorer with 41, while captain Fray (26), Coolidge Durham (28) and Azende Furbert (25) all made starts.

“I think the rain break helped,” Smith said. “We had a rough two overs before that and it kind of brought us back as a team. We stuck to the plan and at the end of the day we were victorious.”

Gus Logie, the Bay coach, felt the rain delay was the turning point in the game with his team struggling to pick up where they had left off.

“The rain came and after that things changed a bit,” Logie said. “We had to regroup and refocus and we didn’t do that.”

Logie also felt some of his key players failed to show up on the big day.

“In these kind of games you really need your best players to step up,” he said.

“Your top players must deliver in crunch situations and we just didn’t have too many of our top players delivering today. But congratulations to St George’s, they came out aggressively and took the game to us.”