Boodoo’s century secures U19 title for Scarlet Blazers

Bren­dan Boodoo struck a com­posed un­beat­en cen­tu­ry to guide Scar­let Blaz­ers to a 60-run vic­to­ry over Cocrico War­riors and se­cure the FI­AL Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) Un­der-19 Cup at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, on Fri­day.

Sent in to bat, Scar­let Blaz­ers made a steady start with an open­ing stand of 42 be­tween Jor­dan Julien (29) and Dar­rius Ba­toos­ingh (9) in­side 8.4 overs. How­ev­er, their progress was halt­ed abrupt­ly as they lost three wick­ets for no runs in the space of five balls, slip­ping to 42 for three in the 10th over.

Pace bowler Tyler Ram­roop sparked the col­lapse, re­mov­ing Julien and Reyad Jerome off suc­ces­sive de­liv­er­ies. He fin­ished with fig­ures of 2 for 42 from his 10 overs.

At 52 for four, Cap­tain Boodoo joined Chris­t­ian Lall in a cru­cial part­ner­ship that not on­ly stead­ied the in­nings but al­so laid the foun­da­tion for a com­mand­ing to­tal. The pair added 138 runs in 20 overs, tak­ing the score from 64 for four to 202 for five.

Lall led the charge dur­ing the stand, smash­ing 89 off just 80 balls, in­clud­ing ten fours and two six­es, be­fore he was well caught by na­tion­al pac­er Daniel Hold­er off the bowl­ing of Ale­jan­dro Kas­sir­am.

With Lall gone, Boodoo—then on 49—an­chored the re­main­der of the in­nings. He found sup­port from Kristoph Seer­aj, who con­tributed 24 in a 69-run part­ner­ship.

Boodoo went on to reg­is­ter his third cen­tu­ry of the sea­son and his sec­ond of the tour­na­ment, fin­ish­ing un­beat­en on 101 as Scar­let Blaz­ers post­ed 292 for sev­en from their 50 overs. Hold­er, Ram­roop, and Kas­sir­am each claimed two wick­ets for the War­riors.

In re­ply, Cocrico War­riors made a de­cent start but lost their first wick­et at 31 when Ghan­ny was caught by Julien off Aaden Owen for 10. Tariq Richards then com­bined with Za­kariyya Mo­hammed to add 47 for the sec­ond wick­et.

Richards scored a brisk 23 off 20 balls, strik­ing four bound­aries, be­fore falling to na­tion­al youth bowler Ra’ed Ali-Khan in the 13th over, leav­ing the War­riors 78 for two.

De­spite wick­ets falling around him, Mo­hammed stood firm. The Mer­ry­boys wick­et­keep­er-bats­man pro­duced a de­ter­mined 58 from 63 balls, hit­ting nine fours to keep his side in con­tention. His in­nings end­ed at 117 for five when he was caught by Aidan Bo­doe off Scy­on Charles.

Chas­ing 293, the War­riors still re­quired 176 runs from 164 balls at that stage. Rober­to Badree top-scored with an un­beat­en 66, while Aa­di Ram­saran con­tributed 32 from 70 de­liv­er­ies, but the re­quired rate proved too steep.

Boodoo’s lead­er­ship, com­bined with a dis­ci­plined bowl­ing ef­fort, proved de­ci­sive as Scar­let Blaz­ers avenged their ear­li­er group-stage de­feat to Cocrico War­riors, claim­ing a 60-run vic­to­ry to lift the FI­AL TTCB Un­der-19 Cup.

Sum­marised Scores

Scar­let Blaz­ers 292 /7 (50 overs) (Bren­dan Boodoo 101*; Chris­t­ian Lall 89; Tyler Ram­roop 2-42; Daniel Hold­er 2-50) vs Cocrico War­riors 232 /8 (50 overs) (Rober­to Badree 66*; Za­kariyya Mo­hammed 58; Scy­on Charles 2-22). Re­sult – Scar­let Blaz­ers won by 60 runs.