Sea Breeze Oval (Cleveland won toss): St David’s beat Cleveland by seven runs

Zaki Gibbons-DeShields and Isaac Todd took eight wickets between them against Cleveland for St David’s to secure the Junior Eastern Counties on Saturday.

Gibbons-DeShields claimed five for nine and Todd had three for two as Cleveland were bowled out for 26 in 23.4 overs.

St David’s, without the Bermuda Under-19 quartet of Isaiah O’Brien, Zakai Minors, Sa-Qui Robinson and Xavien James, had earlier posted 33 in 18.4 overs, with ten runs from opener Duvonte Binns the highest individual score.

The win meant that St David’s are champions of the three-match under-18 series, with the two teams to meet in the last encounter on August 23.

Having started off as the wicketkeeper in the Cleveland run chase, Todd, 15, spoke of how he decided to bring himself on to bowl. The captain had opener Riley Martin caught and bowled earlier, then came back to pick up the last two wickets and spark celebrations when he bowled Chance Franks, the Cleveland No 10, for two.

“It felt great getting the last two wickets to win us the game,” Todd told The Royal Gazette.

“After an under-par performance with the bat, to make it up with the bowling and the fielding, winning it with such close margins made me feel even better.

“When I saw the runs ticking, I decided it was my time to finish up the game. My plan was to attack the stumps all the time and it worked.

“Primarily, I’m a leg-break bowler, but I decided to stick with medium pace because they were struggling to hit the ball.”

Commenting on the team’s batting, Todd felt that did they lacked the correct approach.

“We didn’t go out there with the right mindset,” he said.

“We were trying to hit everything instead of trying to play the ball on its merit. Most of us got out trying to play across the line; that’s how I actually got out.

“But we had a couple of youngsters stick around. They got us up to 33 and we did the business with the ball.

“I knew we had the ability to defend that score. We just had to get the team in the right state in terms of mindset to be able to do it.

“We had to really tighten up with our bowling and fielding. I couldn’t give as many people overs — I wanted to get everybody at least one.”

St David’s never got going after losing Z’haz Jones in the second over. Besides Binns, the other notable score was eight from Gibbons-DeShields.

Macaz Trott was the pick of the Cleveland bowlers with three for five, while Franks and Martin had two wickets apiece.

Binns, who started behind the stumps before taking the gloves off to pick up one wicket, thought that the St David’s innings suffered from a lack of application.

“We did not put enough effort into our batting, but I feel like we made up for that with the bowling,” he said.

“It feels great for us to retain the trophy. We now want to finish the series unbeaten by winning that last match.”

Gibbons-DeShields, 17, who was in contention for the Bermuda Under-19 team before he suffered a knee injury, gave St David’s a good start with the ball. He removed three of the top four Cleveland batters in quick succession to put his team in the driver's seat.

“I knew my team were at a disadvantage because we’re used to having more senior players,” Gibbons-DeShields said.

“But I feel that as a team, we stuck together. Even though we got a low score, we pushed hard for the victory.

“I knew that getting early wickets defending such a low score was going to be key. As one of the senior players in the team, I made sure that we got those early wickets.”

With Cleveland having plenty of overs to chase down the target, Ja'Shay Trott, the only female in the team, almost took them home.

The Bermuda Under-20 women’s footballer contributed a painstaking six off 46 balls, with her dismissal when 11 runs were required sparking a late collapse.

“I thought we did a brilliant job with our bowling and fielding, but our batting let us down,” she said.

“Our batting was awful. We were pushing to get runs when we needed to stay in there and bat. I was planning to stick in there and bat since we had 40 overs to get our target. I was trying to bat through the overs and make runs slowly. Unfortunately, I got out.

“I feel like I could have stroked the ball with more power. It’s disappointing to be on the losing side, but I’m proud to have scored more runs than the boys.”

Trott, who is following in the footsteps of Brianna Ray and Katherine Bean-Rosario, is longing for the return of a Bermuda women’s team.

“I wish there were more females playing so that we can have a national team and go away to play,” the 17-year-old said.

“Brianna Ray and Katherine Bean-Rosario are an inspiration to all female cricketers in Bermuda. Their names are out there, and I want my name out there, too.”

Brian Hall, who was filling in for Marcus Scotland and Aaron Paynter as St David’s coach, was pleased by his team’s bowling effort.

“I’m proud of the players, even though they made only 33 runs,” Hall said.

“They’re already disappointed and they know what they did wrong, but it’s something that they can work on.

“As they went into the other half of the game, they never put their heads down. They stayed positive the whole time, went out there, put their heads together and got wickets.”

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