Fantastic Foo gives Guyana title in thriller

It was a finish befitting a big final on a night when both teams displayed nerves befitting a big final. In the end, it came down to one man who held his nerve under pressure. Jonathan Foo, the 19-year-old Guyanese discovery of Chinese descent, exploded sensationally as wickets clattered at the other end to steal victory, and a berth in the Champions League, from Barbados' grasp.Foo arrived with his side's hopes all but dashed. The Bajan spinners, led by Ashley Nurse, had choked Guyana's batting. Their last four batsmen needed 59 off the last five overs but Lennox Cush and Esuan Crandon fell in quick succession. Barbados were already celebrating when Foo marked his guard for one final onslaught: Nurse was lofted over long-off but the smiles were still on the Bajan faces. Dwayne Smith was worked for fours to third man and square leg in the 18th over, but surely Guyana could not pull this off from here? Not after they lost their ninth wicket, Nurse's fifth, with 26 required off 11.Foo responded by launching Nurse for another huge six over long-off. Barbados' smiles were replaced by frowns now. Then came the defining moment: Nurse delivered a low full toss on leg stump, Foo smashed it high in the direction of deep midwicket where Larry Babb readied himself to take the catch that would have given Barbados the title. It was not to be - he palmed it over the ropes. The force was with Foo and Barbados had just dropped the Caribbean T20.With 11 to get off the last over, Foo smashed Javon Searles through point for two fours, reminiscent of Lance Klusener's boundaries in that World Cup semi-final. Unlike at Edgbaston, though, Foo had not come this far to return disappointed. More importantly, he had for company a calm No 11. Foo tapped a single to mid-on, giving Devendra Bishoo strike with two required off two. Searles aimed a yorker at off stump and did not miss by much, Bishoo squeezed it out to midwicket for one, but Sulieman Benn fumbled a regulation stop to allow a second. Foo charged back to the non-striker's end and threw his arms aloft. The Guyanese supporters invaded the field and surrounded their hero, while Ryan Hinds, the Barbados captain, was down on the ground holding his head in despair. The dramatic denouement to the chase of 135 was preceded by a sluggish and nervy start. Guyana's approach was confusing. They did away with the experimental line-up, which worked wonders in the semi-final, and nearly paid the price for being too conservative. Travis Dowlin, who had batted with freedom in that game, played well within himself tonight against bowling that was at best steady. Searles sprayed wides down leg side and over the batsmen's heads, but Benn was at the batsmen from the start. He trapped Dowlin in the fourth over with an arm ball for 8 off 17 balls. Sewnarine Chattergoon did not fare any better, pottering to 9 off 15 balls before falling in Hinds' first over. Suddenly Guyana were staring at a required-rate in excess of eight in their last 12 overs - no cause for alarm by Twenty20 standards, but not in these conditions against a determined attack.Runs came in singles until the 12th over when Ramnaresh Sarwan and Narsingh Deonarine swung Hinds for a four and a six each. Things went awry in the next over though, as Nurse got Sarwan and Christopher Barnwell to hole out. When Hinds took out Deonarine in the 14th over, Guyana had lost half their side with less than half the target achieved. Hurricane Foo, though, was about to ravage Barbados.Both teams had disregarded the conditions at the start of the game: despite the possibility of showers Barbados chose to bat, and despite the bounce and movement on offer, Guyana used offspinner Cush with the new ball. Initially Cush's lengths were poor and Dale Richards capitalised to kick-start Barbados' innings. Esuan got sharp movement but repeatedly bowled inswingers down the leg side.In the third over, Cush got Richards to top-edge a full toss to short third man. That brought Jonathan Carter to the crease and just like that Esuan transformed from inconsistent to unplayable. Carter rarely got bat on ball and his early troubles against Esuan set the tone for his entire innings, though, to his credit he did not throw it away. Barnwell struck after the Powerplay with a smart change of pace, foxing Kirk Edwards into an early waft.Carter played and missed often and was guilty of not rotating the strike enough. His momentum was subdued further by a short ball from Barnwell that thudded into his box and had him in strife. Alcindo Holder tried to inject urgency by coming down the track. He picked a couple of boundaries but the ploy did not work against Bishoo, and Holder holed out to deep midwicket in the 15th over. Dwayne Smith also failed under pressure, slogging Bishoo straight to Foo at long on.Barbados desperately needed to finish on a high and they succeeded by stealing 33 runs off the last three overs. Three sixes were struck in that passage of play, including a monster blow from Carlo Morris that nearly landed in the commentary box and a last-ball six over midwicket by Carter. That was after Carter had reached 50 off 60 balls, getting a couple after heaving to cow corner where Foo put him down. Unfortunately for Barbados, it was to be Foo's only error on the night. Nitin Sundar is a sub-editor at Cricinfo

Pushed to the margins, Prior takes centre stage

This has been a week in which Test cricket's merits have been shown in vastly contrasting lights. On the one hand a shocking contest has dribbled to a conclusion in Colombo, with 17 wickets falling in five days at the SSC, including 10 batsmen passing fifty - five of them for a hundred, two of them for a double. At Trent Bridge, on the other hand, consecutive days have passed in which 15 and 13 wickets have tumbled, and all told, 18 batsmen to date have been dismissed in single figures.There's no question whatsoever which of the two contests has been the most compelling, not even at a stage of the Trent Bridge game when only one team has the slightest hope of victory. At 15 for 3 overnight, Ladbrokes are offering odds of 2-1 for England to wrap up victory before lunch on the fourth day, but even if they do so, the effort that Matt Prior put into today's magnificent unbeaten century will not be compromised by the eventual gulf between the sides.Prior has had a rough time of it of late. Through no great fault of his own, he's been pushed to the margins of England's wider squad planning, with Craig Kieswetter's emergence leaving him in limbo in the limited-overs set-up. No-one in their right mind has seriously pedalled the notion that his Test berth is in the same sort of jeopardy, and yet, such is the nature of the England wicketkeeping position, the doubts require almost daily dispersal.Therefore, a superbly combative 102 not out, forged from a position of peril at 72 for 5, was quite some statement of intent. It was Prior's third hundred in 32 Tests, and his first since Trinidad in March 2009, but by the close of play, his satisfaction derived from the manner in which he'd transformed his team's position, rather than the fact he'd logged another statistic in his record-book."I'm not a huge stats watcher, or a stat man," he said. "I got a 93 in my last Test [against Bangladesh at Old Trafford], so it doesn't feel that long ago that I contributed to the team. Whether it was important to show what I could do, I don't know, but I went in in a position when the team needed me to get stuck in, and getting runs for the team was the important bit."In fact, a century could hardly have been further from Prior's thoughts for much of his innings, which began in the midst of yet another of Pakistan's inspired bursts with the ball, as Umar Gul swiped three wickets in four overs to leave his team dreaming of an attainable run-chase. His most immediate concern was to atone for his part in the run-out of Eoin Morgan, and by the time he was joined by the No. 11, Steven Finn, he had a long, long way still to travel, on 63 not out."I don't know what happened there," he said of the Morgan mix-up. "At that time, too many risky runs and singles wasn't the best idea, so it was a bit of miscommunication really. I didn't hear him say yes, he didn't hear me say no, and we ended up looking at each other, with him halfway down the wicket and me thinking: 'Oh my gosh, it's happened again'. It is very disappointing to be involved in a run-out at any stage, especially when it involves arguably your best player of the moment, so I thought I'd best knuckle down here!"Knuckle down he did, with Finn proving to be the most obdurate of allies. While his stonewalling prowess came as a surprise and a delight to a packed Trent Bridge crowd who cheered every step towards England's eventual declaration, Prior himself had no doubt whatsoever about Finn's ability, having witnessed it at close quarters during a rare Championship appearance for Sussex against Middlesex at Uxbridge last week. With Morgan at the other end, Finn had blocked out 35 dot-balls in a 12-over partnership, to save the game with only two wickets standing."It was thoroughly annoying," Prior recalled. "But as he walked to the wicket today, I said something along the lines of 'Same again today please mate!' He did such a fantastic job, not only in the way he played, but what he contributed to the partnership in between overs, in terms of gameplans and all those things. He did all that was expected of him, and more."Regardless of his faith in his team-mate, Prior still had to endure some nervy moments at the non-striker's end, as he crept through the nineties - single by single - with many of his shots coming from the first ball of an over. "My gameplan was to look for twos and fours, but every run counted, I felt, especially when Finny came up to me to say he felt confident at holding up an end. It got a bit frustrating at the end because I wasn't quite hitting the gaps, but I didn't want to turn singles down."That failure to work the angles is the precise reason why Prior's spot in the one-day side has been passed across to Kieswetter, who may lack the subtlety of, say, Morgan, but tends to find the boundaries with a lot of bottom hand. In terms of pure batsmanship, however, there's no comparison between the two men whatsoever. Kieswetter has time on his side and a talent to cultivate, but as a battler who can be backed to produce on demand, Prior's place for the Ashes is utterly non-negotiable."I've batted at six with success, and I've batted at seven, and I feel well placed to do the role in each, as long as we have the right balanced team to win the Test match," he said. "International cricket is all about pressure and how you respond to it. I've not played a day for England as a batsman-keeper that's not been under pressure, but I enjoy and thrive on it, and I embrace it rather than get nervous about it."

All-round T&T crush Jamaica for third place

Trinidad and Tobago may have narrowly missed making the finals of the Caribbean T20, but they put in a thoroughly disciplined performance against a listless Jamaica to settle for third place. The seamers, led by Kevon Cooper, restricted Jamaica to an inadequate 94 in a match initially reduced to 14 overs, before the openers strolled to the revised target of 89 in just 10.1 overs. T&T had the incentive to give their home fans something to cheer about, but Jamaica failed to derive any kind of inspiration. With the exception of Carlton Baugh, none of the batsmen batted with motivation, and it was a continuation of their performance in the semi-final yesterday.Jamaica captain Tamar Lambert won the toss and chose to bat under bright skies, but a sudden downpour forced the players indoors for more than 90 minutes. The Trinidad seamers hit the deck hard and got good carry off a moist surface, getting rid of the attacking opening pair of Chris Gayle and Xavier Marshall early. Gayle, who had a disappointing tournament, holed out to the trap at deep midwicket, before Marshall had his middle stump flattened by a Cooper yorker.Marlon Samuels failed to assume the role of senior pro and was dismissed in embarrassing circumstances. He squeezed the ball to cover and set off for a single but his partner Danza Hyatt was rooted to his end watching the ball. Samuels was stranded at Hyatt's end giving T&T an easy run-out. Hyatt himself failed to make amends as he lost his off stump to Dave Mohammed trying to pull a ball which wasn't short enough. Baugh gave the innings some impetus sweeping and cutting Sherwin Ganga for consecutive boundaries. He swept Mohammed over deep square-leg to bring up the first six of the game, and then picked up two crisp boundaries past point off the seamers. But the pressure increased on him as he lost a couple of partners and when Lendl Simmons served up a short delivery, he failed to clear Bravo at deep midwicket. Bravo bowled a fine final over, delivering three dot balls to Lambert as Jamaica limped to 94. Adrian Barath and Simmons made easy work of the target, which was reduced to 89 off 13 overs following a brief shower after 3.2 overs. The pair also ensured they kept with the Duckworth-Lewis par score and didn't lose any wickets by the end of five overs, the minimum required to constitute a match. The persistent drizzle didn't help the Jamaican bowlers as they struggled to grip the ball. Simmons used the opportunity to recover some form by going on the attack, often making room and clearing his back leg to muscle the ball away. Barath was powerful off the front foot, lofting and driving square on the off side to pick up five fours in his 39. The match was nowhere close to the intensity of the first semi-final yesterday, but the home fans weren't complaining as T&T delivered the knockout blow.