Rising Stars U15 Championship: Barbados defend title as Guyana finish in third
A solid batting effort and great bowling from the Barbados Under-15 team enabled them to become back-to-back champions of the Cricket West Indies (CWI) Rising Stars Regional Under-15s Championship on Wednesday, April 23, at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua.
Guyana finished in third place in the U15 Championship after losing to Barbados
In their final game of the tournament, Barbados U15s won the toss and elected to bat first against the in-form Guyana team. Reyaz Latif, who continued to perform well, had figures of 3 for 31 in his 10 overs, and Brandon Henry and Usain Fredericks each picked up two wickets.
The Barbados team had solid starts from numerous batsmen as they posted a very competitive score of 209 for 8 in their 50 overs. Wicketkeeper batsman Seth Smith top-scored with 47 from 75 balls in an innings that included 4 boundaries. Captain Justin Parris scored 38 of 40 balls, while Rajeev Parsooram contributed 21.
Barbados are CWI Rising Stars Champions for 2025
The young Guyanese batsmen struggled to build substantial partnerships and score at the right tempo throughout their innings. Brandon Henry produced a fighting knock of 50 off 88 balls, but Asher Branford (3 for 19) and Justin Parris (2 for 25) restricted Guyana to a total of 160 all out in 45.3 overs.
At the end of the game, Barbados celebrated their victory, as they would be crowned champions. Guyana had to settle for a third-place finish in this year’s tournament.
The struggles of the Windward Islands Under-15s in the tournament continued, as they lost to the Jamaica Under-15s by 10 wickets.
Batting first, the Windward Islands were bowled out for 86 in 26 overs. Jamie Wickham top-scored with 42 from 68 balls. In reply, Jamaica chased down the total in 12.2 overs with an excellent opening stand from Luwain Pryce (32) and Rajae McGeachy (30). They closed their innings on 87 without loss.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Under-15s jumped to second in the table with a victory over the Leeward Islands. Clayvaunte Powell and De’Morae Prentice both top-scored with 18, as Leeward Islands batted first and were bowled out for 92 in 25.4 overs.
Jayden Sadaphal, Sanjiv Bachu, and Giovanni McKnight each took 3 wickets. Jordan Julien, 36, and Captain Kaiden Pollard, 21, led the Trinidad side to a comfortable 6-wicket victory in the run chase.
The final standings of the tournament is as followed:
