‘Destructive’ Demar leads Chillies to 100-ball title

By Cayman Sports Buzz
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Updated: 16 October 2018

Chillies captured the title in the competition's first season.

Demar Johnson was a one-man wrecking crew as he led Chillies to the title in the inaugural Cayman Cricket 100-ball competition on 14 October with a three-wicket win over Clean Gas in the final at Smith Road Oval.

After Chillies won the toss and elected to field, Johnson starred with the ball taking two wickets for 17 runs off his four overs and also took two catches in the deep, as Clean Gas were restricted to 80 for 7.

Clean Gas, who entered as favourites, could partially blame themselves as the top and middle order soaked up deliveries and allowed too many dot balls to be recorded in the scorebook.

Only Deno McInnis, who scored 26 off 21 balls with two fours and a six, and Patrick Heron with 17 off 28, reached double-digits. Kiran Thodkar and Navin Budhram took two wickets apiece.

When Chillies took to the middle, Clean Gas made a determined start with seamers Kervin Ebanks (2 for 25) and Conroy Wright (2 for 10) dispatching the top order quickly. That was the good news. The bad news was that brought a determined Johnson to the wicket.

Demar Johnson made 60 off 37 balls.

Johnson made light work of the Clean Gas attack, blasting his way to 60 runs off 37 deliveries. His knock included two fours and four sixes. The right-hander put on a 40-run stand with Iranna Baligar (6) before being bowled by Kevon Bazil (2 for 10) in the 13^th over.

Chillies players celebrate the winning runs.

“All I planned to do was go out there and bat, keep my eyes on the ball and keep low because the ball was keeping low. I just wanted to see my team through. I would have really loved that but eventually I got out,” Johnson told CaymanSportsBuzz.com, explaining that it was still a ball that kept low that beat him.

The Man-of-the-Match said it was sweet to put in such a performance against a side heavily laden with national players. “I planned for this because I kept hearing them saying we were no match for them but we did it,” Johnson said.

Kiran Thodkar, the stand-in Chillies skipper was full of praise for Johnson, who was recently named to a 33-man national training squad ahead of international duty next year. “He should be in the XI for the national team,” Thodkar declared.

He, too, was elated with the win. “I feel so awesome right now. I can’t even express. It was an all-round performance. Every player contributed but this guy (Johnson) was the star.”

See full scorecard here.

The 100-ball competition closed out the 2018 Cayman Cricket season.

100-ball runners-up Clean Gas

Starting XIs

Chillies: Akhilesh Gavde, Sunil Sunil, Kiran Thodkar (wk/capt), Demar Johnson, Iranna Baligar, Navin Budhram, Rocky Baxani, Jatin Saluja, Effan Fernandes, Mahindra Sanichar, Pete Johnson.

Clean Gas: Rikelme Walker, Patrick Heron, Deno McInnis (wk), Omar Willis (capt), Paul Manning, Conroy Wright, Alistair Ifill, Kervin Ebanks, Kevon Bazil, Jermaine Griffiths, Milton Johnson.

More photos to follow on our Facebook page.