Bar­ba­dos Pride were clos­ing in on vic­to­ry over T&T Red Force but Test vice-cap­tain Jer­maine Black­wood was help­ing to lead a Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons fight­back against lead­ers Guyana Harpy Ea­gles, on the penul­ti­mate day of the fourth round of match­es in the West In­dies Cham­pi­onship.

Off-spin­ner Chaim Hold­er snatched four for 63 and fast bowler Akeem Jor­dan claimed three for 35 to rout hosts Red Force for 185 in their sec­ond in­nings at Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain, and tilt the con­test in Pride’s favour on Fri­day.

Set 118 to win, Pride reached 52 for two at the close, need­ing a fur­ther 66 runs to close out the win.

Harpy Ea­gles found no such com­fort at home at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um, de­clar­ing their sec­ond in­nings on 294 for sev­en, thanks to Tevin Im­lach’s un­beat­en 136.

Asked to chase 463, Scor­pi­ons closed on 176 for one with debu­tant open­er Tevin Gilzene hit­ting an un­beat­en 81 and Black­wood on 66 not out.

At the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do, Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes suf­fered a sec­ond in­nings col­lapse against Wind­ward Is­lands Vol­ca­noes to be 99 for five at the close – on­ly 128 runs ahead go­ing in­to the fi­nal day.

Kavem Hodge had ear­li­er con­vert­ed his overnight half-cen­tu­ry in­to 137, help­ing Vol­ca­noes to push their overnight 206 for two to 353 all out.

Re­sum­ing the morn­ing on 31 for two, Red Force flour­ished as cap­tain Dar­ren Bra­vo (36) ex­tend­ed his third wick­et stand with Bryan Charles (18) to 49.

West In­dies se­lectee Jor­dan broke the stand when he had Charles, on five at the start, caught at the wick­et by cap­tain Shane Dowrich and the dis­missal sparked a slide which saw three wick­ets tum­ble for 27 runs.

Bra­vo, un­beat­en on 20 overnight, faced 79 balls and count­ed half-dozen fours be­fore he was fourth out, caught low down at first slip by Jor­dan off Hold­er.

Red Force were then propped up by two key stands, Jyd Goolie (35) putting on 46 for the sixth wick­et with Test wick­et­keep­er Joshua Da Sil­va (21) and 34 for the sev­enth with Tion Web­ster (22).

Faced with a mod­est tar­get, Pride lost two wick­ets but first in­nings top-scor­er, open­er Zachary Mc­Cask­ie was lead­ing the chase with an un­beat­en 29.

In George­town, the 26-year-old Im­lach carved out his maid­en first class hun­dred, the right-han­der fac­ing 217 de­liv­er­ies in just short of 5-¾ hours and strik­ing 14 fours.

Re­sum­ing the day on ex­act­ly 50, Imach ex­tend­ed his fifth wick­et stand with Test open­er Tage­nar­ine Chan­der­paul to 175 be­fore the part­ner­ship end­ed.

Chan­der­paul, on 60 at the start, made 89 off 249 de­liv­er­ies in five hours with a dozen fours.

Fast bowler Mar­quino Mind­ley added an­oth­er two wick­ets to end with six for 54.

The game then ap­peared head­ed for a swift fin­ish when Scor­pi­ons lost Leroy Lugg for 10 with as many runs on the board in the first over, caught at the wick­et edg­ing a de­fen­sive stroke off pac­er Rons­ford Beat­on.

How­ev­er, Gilzene counter-at­tacked with 18 fours off 134 de­liv­er­ies in a shade over 2-¾ hours, in a 166-run sec­ond wick­et stand with Black­wood who has faced 124 balls in 2-¾ hours and count­ed sev­en fours.

Vol­ca­noes, mean­while, were pro­pelled by Hodge who gath­ered his fourth first class hun­dred, hit­ting 15 fours in a knock which re­quired 253 de­liv­er­ies and near­ly 5-½ hours.

Start­ing the day on 85, Hodge pushed his overnight third wick­et stand with Al­ick Athanaze to 246 be­fore his cap­tain fell for 128 af­ter re­sum­ing the morn­ing on 105.

Athanaze struck 17 fours and a six off 173 balls in four hours at the crease over­all.

Seam­er Je­re­mi­ah Louis (4-46) and off-spin­ner Rah­keem Corn­wall (4-109) fin­ished with four wick­ets apiece.

Ahead by on­ly 29 runs on first in­nings, Hur­ri­canes col­lapsed de­spite open­er Montcin Hodge’s un­beat­en 45, left-arm seam­er Pre­ston Mc­Sween (2-26) grab­bing two of the wick­ets to fall. CMC