Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Rudolph Samuel welcomes home local cricketers who are members of the Leeward Islands U19 team who won the Cricket West Indies Rising Stars U19 championship in St. Vincent on Saturday.
AIRPORT-Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Rudolph Samuel, Member of Parliament (MP) Angelique Roumou, excited parents and well-wishers welcomed home local cricket youth stars after they were crowned champion of Cricket West Indies Rising Stars U19 tournament in St. Vincent on Saturday.
Local cricketers Chemequiko Landedort, Amarius Harris, Nathan Edward and Michael Palmer were members of the Leeward Islands U19 team who received the championship trophy and medals.
Minister Samuel was elated to greet the youngster and stated that the government showed up because “they cared.”
He acknowledged that the youngsters are ambassadors for St. Maarten and have made themselves, parents proud and the island proud by achieving such a feat.
Roumou expressed commendations to the U19 players for doing so well on the regional scenes. She singled out Palmer who was an AR Scholar Athlete/Art recipient last month on his selection and performance in the team.
Landefort and Edward were instrumental in Leeward Islands being crowned champions after their second innings heroics against Barbados in the final.
Landefort dismantled the Barbados batting line up to record figures of 6-1-23-4 and also help his team gain valuable bowling points. The Bajans were bowled out for just 76. And when the Leeward Islands found themselves in deep trouble and in danger of losing the match and the championship trophy while chasing 106 to win, Edward batted for 90 minutes for an unbeaten 11 off 55 balls to save his team.
Edward was the leading fast bowler of the tournament with 12 wickets at 15.25 and also the number three run scorer for the Leeward Islands 134 runs at an average of 44.33. Landefort was the number two fast bowler for the Leeward Islands with nine wickets. He and Edward bowled outstanding opening spells for the Leeward Islands in all the matches. The two fast bowlers had the local commentators fascinated by their accuracy and opposition batsmen in dire straits with their yorkers and lightning-fast deliveries. Palmer and Harris played three and two matches respective and score 14 runs each. Harris also had two wickets.
For the Leeward Islands, Jewel Andrews from Antigua scored the most runs with 164 runs and off spinner Onaje Amory from Nevis was the bowler with the most wickets; 18 wickets.
