 Alright, so we're going to continue today's show with Cricket. Round two of the Cricket-Westernies' women's Super 50 Cup took place on Wednesday in St. Kittsonivis with all six teams in action. Both Jamaica and Ghana earned their second consecutive wins while defending champions Barbados had to hold off a thin challenge from the Trinidad and Tobago, ready for Stevers to secure their first of the campaign. Here's how things unfolded. Alright, so this is the Barbados woman batting first, getting to 186th in 48.4 overs, 93 from Skipmok, Kaisiya Knight, and 16 from Kaishona Knight. Pick of the bowlers for the Trinidad and Tobago woman, Karishma Ramhara, who is tuned in right now, 4 for 20, and Samara Ramnath, 3 for 38. Then the Trinidad and Tobago woman could only manage to get to 178 for 8. This was an extremely close match, Brittany Cooper the skipper, getting to 33, and the youngster Samara Ramnath, 32. Pick of the bowlers for Barbados woman, Alia Alain, 2 for 33, and Kaliah Elliott, 2 for 33. Killer Elliott. Alright, next one. So in this match, we had the Leeward Islands up against the Jamaica woman, and of course the Leeward Islands were dismissed all out to 98 in 35.1 overs. Thanks to the brilliant bowling of Skipo Stefani Taylor, 3 for 16, and Vanessa Watts, 3 for 15. Guyanese Boyz managed to get to 37, and Sharnisha Hector, 14. The Jamaican woman got to that target quite easy with Shadeen Neshaan, ending on 61 nut out, and Rashada Williams, 29 nut out. Pick of the bowlers for the Leeward Islands woman, Amanda Edwards, she picked up that lone wicket. Alright, so this one, the Guyanese woman, a second consecutive win, 207 for 8, and they're 50 overs. Top stuff from Shabika Gajnabi, getting to 61, and Shameen Campbell, 42. Pick of the Leeward Islands woman, Bowlers, Karina Noel, 3 for 47, and Selena Ross, 1 for 8. The Leeward Islands woman could only manage to get to 163 in their 40.2 overs. Pick of the batters, Narissa Krafton, 47, Zeta James, 21, and top bowling from the Guyanese Tafiana Billington, 2 for 23, and Ashmini Munisar, 2 for 31. Alright, so it's about that time where we welcome Vernon Springer to discuss Wednesday's action. Good afternoon, Vernon. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm alright. That would have been better if the Red Force Divas picked up a win, but so it goes to wins for Ghana and of course, you know, they would feel, they would feel really good. And Jamaica. Let me not forget Jamaica. Well, it's obvious that Jamaica is on a mission, leading the competition so far with 12 points, going into their next game against Trinidad and Tobago. So I know you're not going to like that one tomorrow, but you never know. Maybe you might just like the Jamaicans, but they're easily playing the best cricket so far. You've got three-half centuries of our nation, Taylor, Henry, and on paper, I think they're going to be very hard to beat. Yeah, let's talk about Stefani Taylor and how she has really come back looking fit and fine and has stepped up for her team both with bat and ball. Well, one thing you can't do is you can't buy experience and Taylor has experience. And so this competition, she's come here on a mission and knowing very well that Barbados is without Haley Mathews. And so they are on a mission to be able to try and reclaim their Caribbean crown first in the Super 50 and then the T20. But the competition is not over by a long shot yet. One of my main concerns, Maria, in terms of looking at the matches is we need to see some more improvement in the feeling, just too many mistakes. Yeah. It's just like some of the ladies have been playing for the first time and I'm very much concerned about the basic mistakes that I'm seeing, even in terms of the batting. When I went through the analysis of the last round of matches, most of the teams, players were getting out ball, basic balls, just to be able to understand how to defend your stump and defend the castle. And I am not seeing much of that. And I think this comes down to preparation as I was talking to you on lands and how we are preparing the women quicketers. You know, we have to understand that quick it is a game. So I think when you look along in terms of how some people prepare women, bringing them up soft, but women don't want to be brought up soft. Women want to come up understanding how they're going to play the game. And I just, when I look at the feeling, I'm very much, we have to be able to lift the game, lift the standard if we want to compete on the world stage. Yeah. And speaking about competing on the world stage, we saw some really good performance from Shadeen. You know, she has really assumed her role and of course been working hand in hand with her skipper, Stephanie Taylor. Really happy to see her getting some runs with the bat. Well, at this level, Maria, because of the quality of what is coming out of the women's tournament, you expect someone like a Shadeen nation who would have played the number I gave her cooking question is, to come to the party. So that is not a surprise. What you want is you have a general Glasgow who's 20 years old. She's been the only bright prospect. I want to see somebody like a Rashada Williams step up and come to the party and more some of the other young players that you know, we have to have a new cadre of young players coming to and I think that is going to be major concern for the West Indies women's selection panel. Yeah. Vernon, how much do you read into the guy and a victory over the windwards because the windwards had started out pretty strongly. And the Guyanese were able to make more than 200 runs against them. And as we've seen the tendencies for teams not to make as many as 200 runs, the windwards bowling, not bad. So that's what we're going to do. And then continuing through to get the victory. How much do you read into that result? Because based on what we have seen in the opening round, the windwards look decent and the Guyanese taking care of them could suggest that the Guyanese are title contenders. Scoreboard pressure. Scoreboard pressure. And in a competition where you're playing for all of the marbles, anything can happen. If you look through this entire tournament, you would see that there have been key runouts in certain situations, communication. And that game featured where you had a couple of runouts. Even, you know, when you look at the situation, you know, they could have maybe still won the game. Crafton was on 47 coming up to the end there. And you could see that she was trying to get fancy and played along a straight delivery. And that opened up the game for Guyan. A Guyanese stayed in the game. You'll have to also give credit to Barbetas, who now will be defeated in Trinidad and Tobago by eight runs. So that game could have gone either way. But again, my major concern is that if you look at the batting, the bowling, yes, we're going to see a lot of the affifletchas and company and Taylor getting wickets. But it's the batting that is going to be the major concern for women's cricket in this championship. Yeah, batting is the major concern for West Indies women's cricket. And it has been for some time now, Vernon. And two rounds out of the way. And I'm already seeing a familiar storyline. And I'm already seeing a familiar storyline. And I'm already seeing a familiar storyline. And one that I have spoken about on this show, not specific to the women, because it happens with the men as well. And it is the inability of Caribbean teams, and especially at the highest level to consistently bat 50 overs. And when we look at what has happened in this tournament so far with these teams, they're all struggling to bat 50 overs. And speaking specifically as well to the teams who are batting first. So for example, in the World Cup, Jamaica batted 46.5 overs. Trinidad and Tobago, 48.2. Guyana, 36.3. And then in round two, Barbados, 48.4. The Leeuards, 35.1 against Jamaica. And Guyana batting their 50. The only team batting first in the competition so far to get to 50 overs. But I want to ensure that I am being fair, Vernon, to these ladies. So I want to make sure that they're being fair to both these ladies. So I want you to assess what the conditions have been like. Is it a matter of the surfaces that they have been playing on? Or has it just been that they've not been good enough? I think it comes down to preparation. Preparation is going to be key. Let's start with Guyana. Guyana just had three intercom games before they picked their squad to come to sink. It's the newest for the Spigot West Indies Championship. You also could look at the Winwood Islands who are playing for the Spigot West Indies Championship. I think it's a good question among the four territories. The Leeuards must have 26 players to go to Nevis and sink is to have a training camp. Barberas. A shortage of women cricketers playing in Barberas. Jamaica. Similar situation. Trinidad and Tobago maybe out of the luck, maybe have the most organized program. But even Trinidad and Tobago is still when you look at the young cadre of players coming through. It's a question of how much time are we spending on women's cricket and what are we doing? First of all, we need to be able to have some coaches who are going to be able to quickly develop our women's program. We only have to look at what happened with the West Indies. The cricket West Indies under 19 tournament and the starter schools that were coming out of that tournament. So I'm saying if before tournament we're beginning to bring the ladies together, then we can't be serious about women's cricket. We have to do more and we have to start playing lip service to women's cricket and put a great emphasis on developing the game. And developing the game does not mean by having competition. It might mean that we have to be able to send some coaches, for instance, delivered islands. In this competition, delivered islands have never won a game. We got to find out what is happening, what are the problems, what are the causes. Look around and see how best we could help. Maybe we need a franchise system in the women's cricket rather than having six territories playing against each other. What is the message you're looking in? Has nothing to do with the conditions and the surfaces that they're playing on you think this is all about what is being put into the women's game. And you're saying that we are seeing the end result of what you consider to be limited investment in regional cricket on the women's side. Yeah, well, let's be honest. Let's look at the franchises. All the franchises concentrate on the men's aspect of the game. How many of the franchises really spend time and make an effort and say they have an organized youth development program for women's cricket? And they can come and tell you guys sportsmax and tell me what they have put in place. It's limited. We only have three CPL teams in the women's competition. How many players we are from the Caribbean? I mean, these are serious questions. You know, I mean, so there needs to be a greater investment going forward for the women's game. Greater attention has to be paid to the first, the girls under nineteen. But we can't just pick up girls and say, well, come and play for the leaders and come and play for Barbados at an early age. We have to start at the primary school level, then on to the secondary school level. We must have a program. There must be a pathway for women's cricket in the Caribbean. Yeah, well, spring on, we'll continue to watch the women's games. We'll continue to keep in contact with you. Let's see if Jamaica and of course Ghana can keep up that when let's run that they're on. Thank you so much. I'm going to put my money on the line. After the third round, I think Jamaica will win the championship. How much money, Ricardo, wants to know? How much money is that? How much money? Yes. Whatever the price you call. I heard that you had a lot, but I didn't realize that I was hearing the truth. All right, let's take a quick break with that piece of information. We'll be right back.