West Indies U19s are off to a winning start in the West Indies Rising Stars U19 Tri-Series with a comfortable 36 run victory over England U19s, at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.

Ashmead Nedd (5-27) and Leonardo Julien (69), starred with ball and bat for the West Indies youths, as the pair immediately displayed the benefit of being part of the successful West Indies Emerging Players team that won the Colonial Medical Insurance Super50 Cup.

“It’s a great feeling (the win), the guys played really well and were clinical in all three departments,'' said West Indies U19 Captain Kimani Melius.

He continued: “We always believed defending the total was possible once we stuck to our bowling game plans.”

England U19s chose to bowl first after winning the toss. The visitors got an early breakthrough when medium pacer Blake Cullen got the big wicket of Windies captain and key batsman Kimani Melius (7), with the score 10/1 in the third over.

Julien, fresh off his match winning 83 in Sunday’s Colonial Medical Insurance Super50 Cup final joined countryman and left-hander Mbeki Joseph at the wicket. Similar to the final when he was batting with Yannic Cariah after Melius got out, his partnership with Joseph (37) of 90 runs allowed the West Indies U19 innings to recover.

“I went out there, assessed the wicket and played my game,'' said Julien about his knock.

“The wicket was difficult to bat on, so I was just telling myself to wait on the ball and get in.”

After the Julien/Joseph partnership ended with the duo being dismissed in the space of three overs as the Windies slipped from 100-2 to 122/3, West Indies U19s lost their final seven wickets for 42 runs in 14 overs.

However in the run chase England struggled. New-ball bowling pair of Matthew Forde, who was the Rising Stars U19 player of tournament this summer in St.Vincent, in partnership with Jayden Seales took three wickets in first six overs to put England U19s on the backfoot immediately.

This exposed their middle order to Nedd’s crafty left arm spin who took full advantage to propel the home side to victory.

“Coming into this match I was high on confidence after the Super50. I stuck to the task although we had a low score to defend. I believe in this team and we went out there and defended it (total)”, said Nedd.

WEST INDIES RISING STARS U19 TRI- SERIES SCHEDULE

All matches take place in Antigua, starting at 9.00am

Fri, 6th Dec 2019:

ODI 1 - West Indies v England

Sir Vivian Richards Stadium

Sun, 8th Dec 2019:

ODI 2 - West Indies v England

Sir Vivian Richards Stadium

Tues, 10th Dec 2019

ODI 3 - West Indies v Sri Lanka

Sir Vivian Richards Stadium

Wed, 11th Dec 2019

ODI 4 - England v Sri Lanka

Sir Vivian Richards Stadium

Thu, 12th Dec 2019

ODI 5 - West Indies v England

Sir Vivian Richards Stadium

Sat, 14th Dec 2019

ODI 6 - West Indies v Sri Lanka

Coolidge Cricket Ground

Sun, 15th Dec 2019

ODI 7 - Sri Lanka v England

Coolidge Cricket Ground

Tue, 17th Dec 2019

ODI 8 - West Indies v Sri Lanka

Coolidge Cricket Ground

Thu, 19th Dec 2019

ODI 9 - England v Sri Lanka

Coolidge Cricket Ground

Sat, 21st Dec 2019

ODI 10 - FINAL

Coolidge Cricket Ground