Vin­ode Mam­chan

Wick­et­keep­er/bats­man Shane Dowrich showed good form in the West In­dies Un­der-19s warm-up match in New Zealand against North­ern Dis­tricts on Tues­day night, to give the West In­dies a morale boost­ing vic­to­ry over a team with six reg­u­lar First Class play­ers. Af­ter the West In­dies bowled out North­ern Dis­tricts 'A' for just 123, Dowrich slammed an un­beat­en 71, as the West In­dies set a re­vised tar­get of 215 off 50 overs, got home by two wick­ets at 220 for eight in 47.4 overs.

Dowrich looked at ease while at the crease and this is good news for the West In­dies team as they head in­to the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) World Cup next week. He re­ceived good sup­port from Trinida­di­an Evin Lewis who scored 36 and skip­per An­dre Creary who got a hard hit­ting 38. Ear­li­er, Nevis fast bowler Nel­son Bolan was at the top of his game in claim­ing 4/30 and left arm spin­ner Jomel War­ri­can chipped in with 2/26, as the hosts choos­ing the bat first, were skit­tled be­fore a good crowd at Bay Oval.

Man­ag­er of the team Omar Khan was pleased with the start : "I thought the guys did well, giv­en the fact that this is their first game on tour. The op­po­si­tion was not bad be­cause six reg­u­lar first team play­ers were in­clud­ed in the North­ern Dis­tricts 'A' team.

"There are a num­ber of ar­eas in which the coach would like the play­ers to im­prove and this was not­ed and will be dealt with to­day at prac­tice." The sec­ond warm-up match against the same team takes place to­day at the Bay Oval, start­ing at 5.30 pm.

Scores:

North­ern Dis­tricts 'A' 123 all out (36.4 ovs) (Nel­son Bolan 4/30, Jomel War­ri­can 2/26) vs West In­dies Un­der-19 220/8 (47.4 ovs)(Shane Dowrich 71no, An­dre Creary 38, Evin Lewis 36).