Joshua Da Silva scored a brilliant 136 not out on the opening day of their Headley-Weekes Series match against the West Indies Academy at Coolidge on Wednesday.
Da Silva’s unbeaten 136, rescued the team he leads from a precarious 59-5 after Johan Layne had ripped through the top order on his way to a five-wicket haul, dismissing Kieran Powell for a duck, Darren Bravo for five, Kavem Hodge for 10 and Tevyn Walcott for 15.
“[We’re] not going to take them lightly at all. They have some quality players even though they haven’t played first class cricket some of them, we know they can bat and we know they’ve been training, and coach [Andre] Coley has been working with them a lot,” said West Indies wicketkeeper Da Silva.
“So the boys are not going to take them lightly at all, and we’re going to play our hearts out and try and knock them over pretty quickly to show that we have some veterans on our team.”
“It looks a pretty balanced team. We have a mix of veterans and youngsters so it’s just to try and learn from them and help the others to learn some things as well,” Da Silva explained.
“Obviously I will learn from Bravo and Sunil myself – they’ve played a lot of cricket. So I’m just looking forward to playing with all the boys.”
The captain and Akeem Jordan managed to stem the slide with a sixth-wicket partnership of 105. Jordan’s contribution was 54 which included eight fours before he became Layne’s fifth victim as Headley XI recovered to 164-6.
Da Silva and Anderson Phillip added 38 for the seventh wicket before the latter lost his wicket to Kirk McKenzie for 16 and 22 with Chaim Holder, who had made 10 when he lost his wicket to Joshua Bishop.
Da Silva then scored all 35 runs in a ninth-wicket partnership with Marquino Mindley, who was eventually dismissed by Ashmead Nedd for 0 as the innings closed at 257-9.
First-class debutant Johann Layne took 5 for 39, while Joshua Bishop had 2 for 89 for the West Indies Academy.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Keagan Simmons was out the fifth ball for a duck, playing for the West Indies Academy.
When play resumes on Thursday, Kirk McKenzie will continue from his overnight score of 31 while Kevlon Anderson is not out on 12. The pair are staging a recovery after Jordan had dismissed Keegan Simmonds and Teddy Bishop for ducks in his opening over.
Jordan’s two wickets have come at a cost of 15 runs from the five overs he bowled before close of play.
Summarized scores: Team Headley 259 for 9 (Da Silva 136*, Layne 5/39) vs West Indies Academy 49 for 2 (McKenzie 31*; Jordan 2/16). WI Academy trails by 210 runs