On a damp wicket, the Wolues new Captain, Matthew Plimmer, won the toss and decided to field first and it wasn’t long until he was probably regretting the decision.

A relatively slow start by the Vikings burst into a one-man show as Kevin Walker strode to the wicket at the fall of the first one. He took 20 yards to get his eye in and then smashed the bowlers to all parts recording fifteen six’s and three fours in an innings of 109.

Plimmer, who led from the front with 3 for 60, rotated his bowlers as best he could, but all to no avail.

His “go to man”, Johnny Bailey, was able to curb the scoring more than most, by restricting Walker to fours and not sixes and he finished with 1 for 47.

Richard Fredericks supported Walker with a stroke filled 86 (ten 6’s and three 4’s) and Vaden Walker joined his brother for some late pyrotechnics in his unbeaten knock of 54 (six 6’s and 3 4’s) as the Vikings reached 280-4 from their 15 overs.

“I made several contributions like that back in Guyana and just play the ball as I see it,” stated Walker. “We want to be on top, want to be number one,” he added noting that based on their performance in that game it will take a very good team to stop them.

Product of the BVICA/WICB Grassroots Programme, Shamoy Thompson, made a solid debut behind the stumps for the Wolues with three catches and Cedar School’s Stefan Rhoden also made a good start on his debut.

In reply, the Wolues made the worst possible start losing opener William Gunn to his first delivery and it went downhill from there with only two batsman reaching double figures and the innings including 5 “ducks”.

Will Pridgeon scored 34 with 5 six’s and Charlie Jackson 14 not out.

“All credit to the Vikings, they demonstrated a lot of skill, but we had some positives,” commented Plimmer. “We created some chances, but didn’t take them and the young lads did well. Shamoy did fantastic with three catches and the game showed there are a lot of runs to be had in tape ball, something we need to practice!”

Fredericks led the bowlers with 3 for 10 and Yadav returned figures of 2 for 13 as the Wolues were all out for 87 to lose by 203 runs.

“We batted well at the top,” commented Vaden Walker, the Vikings Captain. “Obviously my brother’s hundred was a highlight, but we played well as a team, the bowlers did well and we stuck to the basics.”

The second game saw the Vincy C.C. comfortably chased down a target of 153 set by Lucas United to win by four wickets.

Otis Chin led United with 59 (seven 6’s), with Dave Doherty adding 26 and Rohan Sweeney 22.

Brent Defreitas finished with 1 for 17 to be the pick of the bowlers.

Moving sedately towards victory , the Vincy C.C. were rocked by a superb diving catch from Michael Dean to remove Murray, but Defreitas strode to the wicket and smashed four, six, four to make the chase a formality. His onslaught left the Vincy C.C. needing just 15 with three overs to go.

Time for one more bit of drama as the 13th over produced a six, a dropped catch, a wide, a tremendous catch by Sweeney and a couple of runs to reduce the required runs to just 6 with 12 balls to go. Vincy Captain, Dennisford Brown, was the man to fall to Sweeney’s acrobatic effort, but not before he had anchored his team’s chase with 58. Kendrick Leslie scored 35 and Defreitas finshed 22 not out. Lenroy Murray picked up 2 for 24 and McArthur Byfield 2 for 25.

“It was an interesting first game, we stuck to our plans though and as captain I was able to lead from the front,” said Brown.

Next Sunday sees the Carime C.C. launch their campaign against Lucas United at noon, followed by the Vikings C.C. taking on the Cavaliers C.C. at 2 p.m.