By Calvin Roberts
Americas Development notched up their first victory in the knock out phase of the CLICO Under-15 International cricket tournament when they defeated Holland by 75 runs on the Duckworth/Lewis system in their rain ruined match at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ground yesterday.
Playing in a game that was reduced to 45 owing due to early morning rain, Americas Development must have counted their lucky stars after reaching 187 -7 from their 45 overs when at one stage they were 132 without loss in the 29th over.
Their openers man of the match Abhijit Joshi with a well played 65 and Nitish Kumar with 52 set up the match nicely for them but their batting fell away following the dismissal of Joshi, with only Sinclair Smith who scored 14 batting at number six and Dimali Bell (15) being the other batsmen to reach double figures.
Usman Yousaf with 2-30 and Paul Van Meekeren (2-55) were the principal wicket takers for Holland, who were then held to 71-7 from 21 overs after they were 51-3 due to the bowling of Kumar who took 3-7 from two overs and was rather unfortunate not to be named the man of the match.
For Holland, Jaap Vickman with 14 from 48 balls and James Gruijters 10 off 25 balls were the lone batsmen to reach double figures for the Dutch speaking team who will now travel to Tobago to oppose either Kenya or Ireland for a fifth place finish on Thursday May 1 at Shaw Park.
