Tony Becca

THE JAMAICA Cricket Association's Super League tournament takes a break this weekend and even though it is never over until the 'fat lady' sings and anything can happen in the game of glorious surprises, it appears that St Catherine Saints are home and getting dried.

With two matches to go, the Saints are on 22 points from five matches. They dropped first points to Manchester Lions in the opening round. Then, they picked up first innings points from the Jamaica Defence Force Brigades in round number three, after pocketing maximum points from Kingston Tigers, Westmoreland Wizards and then Trelawny Buccaneers.

It's over

It appears over for joint third-place, defending champions St Elizabeth Sharks and the Lions, with both teams on 11 points and 11 points adrift of the leaders.

Statistically, with six points for a win, the Sharks and the Lions still have hope, but with their last two matches pitting them against each other in a head-on clash, with the Sharks playing the Saints and the Lions up against the Kangaroos in the final round, their chances of victory, even if the Saints stumble in the two rounds, is worse than that of a snowball in Hell.

The only team in with a chance, with a hope and a prayer, are the Kangaroos who, with 16 points in the bag, are six points behind the Saints.

Victory for the Kangaroos, however, will mean that they will have to play brilliantly, not only at home against the Saints in the next round, but also against Manchester at Courtney Walsh Drive.

Kangaroos home

To many, the Kangaroos may be lucky that they are at home for both matches. The problem, however, is that they need at least three points from the Saints and six from the Lions, that the matches are being played on a usually good pitch for batting, and, but for left-arm spinner Nikita Miller, Melbourne are lacking bowlers good enough to dismiss a team - especially teams like the Saints and the Lions twice in one match.

Melbourne, with batsmen like Donovan Pagon and Carlton Baugh Jr, along with Andre McCarthy, Damion Henry, Yanick Elliot and Damion Jacobs, plus Miller as a bowler, do have a chance. With a little luck, and as far as their batting is concerned, they can, conceivably, pull it off.

Like those of the St Elizabeth Sharks and the Manchester Lions, however, with the Saints boasting a good line-up of batsmen and bowlers and with Marlon Samuels unlikely to play, their chances are so slim they almost do not exist.

Meanwhile, with 12 centuries already on the board and with spin bowlers Odean Brown - 27 wickets, Miller - 26, Nehemiah Perry - 24, Wayne Simpson - 23 and Alton Beckford with 16 taking most wickets, the tournament, so far, has been quite good.

Disappointment

Apart from the pitch at Sabina Park for the Tigers/Kangaroo match, and apart from the over-aggressive appeals at many matches, the one disappointment has been the few spectators attending the matches.

According to some people it is because of a number of reasons - including some which are out the board's control.

To a number of people, however, including the people of St Elizabeth, the board must take some of the blame and my experiences during last weekend's match between the St Elizabeth Sharks and the Kangaroos at Alpart underlined the problem.

There was hardly anyone at the ground on Saturday for a match between two of the best teams in the country - a match that was promoted as parading four West Indies players and I found out why while I was in Junction after the match.

Poster

The people of Junction told me that they did know about the match. I said that was impossible and they proceeded to show me a poster advertising the match.

It was a colourful and lovely poster and it told the people about taking the game to the next level. It invited them to come and witness a major event, to come and see the Sharks taking on the Kangaroos in a crucial match on Saturday and Sunday April 19 and 20.

There were two things missing, however, and according to the people of Junction, that was why they did not attend the match.

There was nothing on the poster to tell the people what was the major event to which they were invited - whether it was cricket, football, dog racing or even if it was a cockfight, and, most importantly, there was nothing about the venue on the poster, nothing to tell the people where the match was being played!