U-19 Tri-Series: Nedd (5-27) spins West Indies to victory over England

West Indies U-19s are off to a winning start in the West Indies Rising Stars U-19 Tri-Series with a comfortable 36-run victory over England U-19s at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.

After they were sent into bat, the Windies were dismissed for 164 in 46 overs. In reply, England were bowled out for just 128 in 30.3 overs.

Ashmead Nedd (5-27) and Leonardo Julien (69), starred with ball and bat for the West Indies youths, as the pair immediately displayed the benefit of being part of the successful West Indies Emerging Players team that won the Colonial Medical Insurance Super50 Cup.

“It’s a great feeling (the win), the guys played really well and were clinical in all three departments,’’ said West Indies U-19 Captain Kimani Melius.

“We always believed defending the total was possible once we stuck to our bowling game plans.”

England U-19 after winning the toss chose to bowl first. The visitors got an early breakthrough when medium pacer Blake Cullen got the big wicket of Melius for just seven, to leave the score 10 for one in the third over.

Julien, fresh off his match winning 83 in Sunday’s Super50 final, joined countryman, left-hander Mbeki Joseph at the wicket. Similar to the final when he was batting with Yannic Cariah after Melius got out, his 90-run partnership with Joseph who made 37 allowed the Windies’ innings to recover.

“I went out there, assessed the wicket and played my game,’’ said Julien about his knock.

“The wicket was difficult to bat on, so I was just telling myself to wait on the ball and get in.”

After their partnership was broken with the duo being dismissed in the space of three overs, the Windies slipped from 100-2 to 122-3. They then lost their final seven wickets for 42 runs in 14 overs.

However, in the chase, England struggled.

The new-ball bowling pair of Matthew Forde and Jayden Seales, took three wickets in the first six overs to put England on the back foot immediately.

This exposed their middle order to Nedd’s crafty left-arm spin and he took full advantage to propel the home side to victory.

“Coming into this match I was high on confidence after the Super50. I stuck to the task although we had a low score to defend, I believe in this team and we went out there and defended it (total)”, said Nedd. (Barbados Today)