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• Da Silva century rescues Red Force against Scorpions; Louis also ton up in Hurricanes contest against Volcanoes

   A fifth first class century by captain Joshua Da Silva rescued Trinidad and Tobago Red Force from an ominous position, and into the ascendancy in their final round West Indies Championship encounter against Jamaica Scorpions at Sabina Park.

  Da Silva’s 106 off 140 ball, took Red Force from 96-4 to 308-7 at close of Wednesday’s first day. The wicketkeeper/batsman struck 15 fours and one six in his knock, as he shared in an 80-run fifth-wicket stand with Amir Jangoo, who continued his rich vein of form with a 90-ball 51 off.

  Terrance Hinds, unbeaten on 21, and Khary Pierre, on one, will resume batting for Red Force on Thursday.

  Spinners Peat Salmon (2-68) and Jeavor Royal (2-76) have taken most wickets so far for the Scorpions.

  Scores: Trinidad & Tobago Red Force 308-7 (Joshua Da Silva 106, Amir Jangoo 51, Kjorn Ottley 45, Navin Bidaisee 31; Pete Salmon 2-68)

  After being asked to take first strike, Red Force lost Cephas Cooper (12) early, but a 52-run second-wicket partnership between Kjorn Ottley (45) and Jyd Goolie (19), steadied the innings at 81-1, before Salmon and Royal grabbed three quick wickets for 15 runs.

  That brought Da Silva and Jangoo together and the two steadied the Red Force innings from 96-4. Jangoo stroked seven boundaries and a six, before he was removed by Ojay Shields.

  Still, Da Silva pushed on, adding another 92 runs in a sixth-wicket stand with Navin Bidaisee (31), but eventually went to Royal, after adding 36 for the seventh wicket with Hinds.

  Elsewhere, at Frank Memorial Ground in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana Harpy Eagles trail Combined Campuses and Colleges by 86 runs with nine first innings wickets intact.

  Scores: Combined Campuses & Colleges Marooners 200 (Demario Richards 43, Romario Greaves 36, Avinash Mahabirsingh 23; Nial Smith 3-45, Veerasammy Permaul 3-51)

  Guyana Harpy Eagles 114-1 (Raymond Perez 61 not out, Kevlon Anderson 27 not out)

  In Antigua, at Coolidge Cricket Ground, West Indies Academy trail Barbados Pride by 44 runs with six first innings wickets intact.

  Scores: Barbados Pride 155 (Jonathan Drakes 35, Kevin Wickham 27, Shian Brathwaite 26; Johann Layne 3-23, McKenny Clarke 3-26)

  West Indies Academy 111 for four (Ackeem Auguste 67 not out; Akeem Jordan 2-37)

  Meanwhile, at Queen’s Park Oval, Windward Islands Volcanoes trail Leeward Islands Hurricanes by 294 runs with nine first innings wickets intact.

  Scores: Leeward Islands Hurricanes 300 (Mikyle Louis 100, Jewel Andrew 68, Jeremiah Louis 43; Ryan John 3-67, Gilon Tyson 2-33, Daren Cyrus 2-70)

  Windward Islands Volcanoes 6-1

• Jofra Archer: I don’t know if I’ve got another stop-start year in me

  England bowler Jofra Archer admits he may not be able to cope with any fresh injury problems, revealing “I don’t know if I have another stop-start year in me”.

  Archer has been plagued by a litany of fitness problems since bursting on to the international scene in 2019 but is on the comeback trail with hopes of featuring in June’s T20 World Cup in the United States of America and his native Caribbean.

  The seamer is not yet certain if he will make the tournament, having last played competitively 11 months ago following a repeat stress fracture in his right elbow, but insists avoiding further setbacks is crucial.

  The mental and physical toll has been considerable on Archer and he accepts another breakdown could be one too far.

  “It’s been a while and honestly, I don’t know if I’ve got another stop-start year in me. That’s the truth, I don’t know if I’ve got another one,” he told the 4Cast’s Athlete’s Voice podcast.

  “I haven’t played cricket for a whole 12 months as yet. Last year I played from January to May. I think the year before that, I played maybe one or two games for Sussex, so you know I’ve had a whole year of nothing.”

  England are taking a cautious approach with his latest return, taking an early decision to withdraw him from the Indian Premier League and pre-emptively ruling him out of the rigours of Test cricket until next year.

  Instead they hope to unleash him in familiar territory in the West Indies, where they will look to defend their 20-over crown.

  He shares that ambition but is refusing to count on it.

  “Come the first game in June I really do want to be in the team. The last two years have been really stop-start, so I just think that, you know, everyone’s going to just take it a bit easy,” he said.

  “If I’m ready then fine, happy days, but if I’m not they’re still supporting me. Worst-case scenario, I don’t really want to think about this, but even if I don’t make it to the World Cup for whatever reason, there’s still the T20 Blast, there’s still The Hundred.

  “There’s still cricket that I haven’t got a chance to play in the last couple of years, so as much as I want to play in the World Cup, if it doesn’t happen for whatever reason, at least I still know I could be somewhat active.”

  And if Archer does manage to pull an England shirt back on during their visit to his home island of Barbados, he is expecting to see some friendly faces in the crowd.

  “I know it’s not dog friendly in the Caribbean as much as it is here in the UK, but I’d love my family and my dogs at that first game back,” he added.

• Hayley Matthews named Wisden’s leading T20 cricketer in the world

  West Indies captain Hayley Matthews has been named Wisden’s leading Twenty20 Cricketer for 2023, as she topped all and sundry, including her male counterparts.

  Alan Gardner looks at the remarkable performances of this outstanding player – a T20 World Cup champion.

  We’ve all heard the one about the globe-trotting, six-hitting West Indies all-rounder bestriding the T20 stage. But this tale comes with a twist: a first female winner in this award’s seven-year history. Hayley Matthews has long been a star of the game – aged 18, she inspired West Indies to victory in the 2016 World T20 final – but in 2023 she produced an unprecedented red-hot run of form. Between February and her final game of the year in October, on three different continents, she won eight consecutive T20I match awards. The previous best was four in a row. During that sequence, she averaged 88 with the bat, at a strike-rate of 144, and 12 with the ball.

  

  The pièce de résistance came at North Sydney Oval, game seven in the Matthews Supremacy. Set 213, West Indies were powered to a record chase in women’s T20Is by her buccaneering 132 from 64 balls, including 110 in boundaries. Her score, a West Indies record, was the first century in the second innings of a women’s T20I; and it came after she had been the pick of the bowlers, with 3-36 for her off-breaks. That the side on the receiving end were the world champions, playing in their own backyard, added only lustre.

  If 2023 was a banner year for the women’s game, with the inauguration of the Women’s Premier League in India, then Matthews rode the crest of the wave. She was a WPL title-winner with Mumbai Indians, the fifth-leading run-scorer in the competition, and captained Barbados Royals to victory in the Caribbean Premier League, scoring 82 from 59 and taking 2-38 in the final. She was also a high-profile pick in The Hundred and the Big Bash.

  Her feats could only sporadically lift West Indies, whom she had captained for the first time in 2022, though she credited the job for helping her, “take responsibility for my game”.

  

  The first in her streak of match awards came against Ireland at Cape Town during the T20 World Cup, where West Indies ended a run of 15 defeats. She followed that with another all-round display, against Pakistan, though two group wins could not put her side in the semifinals. Ireland were again on the receiving end in July, as West Indies won 3–0 in St Lucia, before their tour of Australia confirmed her status as the ICC’s number one all-rounder. In five days, she smashed 99 not out, 132 and 79 – a total of 310 off 178 balls, with 43 fours and 13 sixes – and took five wickets.

  Her overall T20I record for the year read 700 runs from 14 matches at 63 (strike-rate 132) and 19 wickets at 16 (economy 6.84). Across men’s and women’s T20 – domestic and international – her tally of 1,551 runs was topped only by Jos Buttler. Unlike Matthews, though, he was not the leading wicket-taker in the format. The Caribbean had produced another game-changer.

  Article provided by the Editor of Wisden