Veteran cricketer and one of the more experienced campaigners within the Bolans Blasters set-up, Gershum Phillip, has welcomed the team’s improved showing in the Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association (ABCA) Two Day Championships following their first innings triumph over Rising Sun Spartans over the weekend.
Having no wins in three matches prior to last weekend’s fixture at the Rising Sun grounds, Bolans went into the contest after suffering innings defeats to Liberta Blackhawks, Empire Nation and All Saints Pythons in their prior outings.
“The team has been kind of coming together and doing a little bit better each game and last week’s results doesn’t show much but I think it would have been farfetched to say that was going to happen but we knew we could do things. We knew we had a good score and we had to debate whether to keep batting because Orlando and his son Ondre were going pretty good and we just had to decide whether to put them in and get an early wicket and then try and go for the first innings points first thing,” he said.
Asked to bat after Spartans won the toss, Blasters amassed 323 for nine declared, their highest total in the competition for over a year. Former national player, Orlando Peters top scored with 151 not out from 159 deliveries, hitting 13 fours and eight sixes. Taiem Tongecontributed with 75 from 77 balls while Phillip made 34 at the top of the order.
Phillip is hoping the team will improve on it’s performance going forward with the ultimate goal an outright win in their next match.
“There was a good vibe around the team since Saturday and this team has been out through the ringer for the past couple of weeks. We had a good result [against Rising Sun] and we have to try as much as possible to back it up because we can’t be up and then down so we have to try and get a good result this weekend coming up just to be consistent a little bit,” the player said.
Following their 323 for nine declared, Rising Sun made 199 for nine declared before Blasters then reached 90 for one declared in their second innings. Rising Sun were 114 for five at stumps on the day two.
