Courtney Francis, the chief executive officer of the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA), says the culmination of the 2016 two-day Senior Cup cricket competition was a good showcase for the sport.

Melbourne CC beat first-time finalists St Thomas CA by 73 runs in an intriguing final at Sabina Park, over the weekend.

No more than a couple hundred spectators — most of them St Thomas supporters — turned up either Saturday or Sunday, but they witnessed a hard- fought game.

St Thomas, a team with less tradition and one that is unlikely to have the structure of more established clubs, pushed Melbourne, who were lifting the national two-day title for the 25th time.

“It [the season] went well, and you could see that this final was very competitive,” Francis said on Sunday.

“It brought variety to the sport in that St Thomas was a team going to the final for the first time, and they competed. There was a stage where they looked like they could have won so, therefore, that augurs well for the JCA and it augurs well for the future if we can ensure that we get the quality teams playing against each other and get games like this.”

He boasted that the live internet streaming of the final was an innovation that the JCA will explore in future endeavours.

“A noticeable thing for this final is that it was streamed [via the internet], and that removed the boundaries. It gave persons not at the venue, or even outside of the country, the opportunity to see their team playing and get a feel as to what is happening in Jamaica.

“We’re excited and the streaming will be something we will be doing for a lot of our events. We have the 50-over competition coming up next, and we are putting plans in place to have the semi-finals and the final played under lights and also have streaming.

“We want to build the sport as much as possible. We are looking forward to having a title sponsor, and seeing that we’ve added new features as it relates to streaming, we are anticipating that to happen,” the JCA CEO told the Jamaica Observer.

The competition encountered the odd glitch during the preliminary round.

There was a hearing after an appeal was lodged by St Elizabeth CA against a ruling to uphold the umpires’ decision to award the rain-affected Zone B match, played at Chedwin Park, to St Catherine CC.

The Appeals Panel stuck with the original verdict.

“We had our challenges in the preliminary round but outside of that, things went well. We had the game between St Catherine CC and St Elizabeth where it went before the competitions and complaints committee. That delayed the competition for a week because we had to get a ruling on it. But once we have the review with all the teams, we’ll see where we can improve so that next year the competition will be better.

— Sanjay Myers