Demerara and Essequibo ended their miserable campaign in the Carib/Pepsi T20 tournament as joint third place finishers after the umpires called off the game last evening at the Guyana National Stadium because of rain.
Both teams were winless throughout the preliminary rounds, losing to defending champions Berbice and the Rest Team, who met in the final late last night. Before the game was called off last evening, the Demerara batsmen especially Ramnaresh Sarwan, flayed the hapless Essequibo attack.
Sarwan, when the rain stopped play at 17:21, had scored a blistering unbeaten 64 (4×4, 3×6) from 41 balls as his team cruised to 129-2 from 12.3 overs. Travis Dowlin and Christopher Barnwell were the other batsmen that provided more misery for Essequibo with scores of 39 and 14 respectively.
Essequibo’s pacer Rayon Thomas (1-15) and spinner Robert Moore (1-23) were the successful bowlers after their side had lost the toss.
Barnwell started the game in characteristic aggressive fashion with boundaries in the first two overs. But as is customary, Barnwell got over zealous and was caught at midoff by Norman Fredericks off Rayon Thomas for 14 attempting to go over the top in the third over.
The Essequibo bowlers did themselves a disservice with their incessant bowling of wide deliveries and bad balls. This allowed Dowlin to cash in by cover driving pacer Ronsford Beaton for six before flicking him to the long leg boundary for four.
With the batsmen capitalizing on the bad bowling coupled with the extras, Demerara raced to 53-1 after the first six overs. Demerara skipper Sarwan started asserting himself with a cut to the backward point boundary and then to the cover boundary.
The two most senior batsmen in the Demerara team, which had lost two of its preliminary rounds games and had the third washed out, were scoring at a high rate. The Essequibo bowlers were being picked apart at every opportunity that presented itself as the batsmen scored at nine runs an over.
Sarwan brought up his team’s 100 in style with a six over long-on off spinner Anthony Adams from a free-hit in 10.3 overs. In the next over Sarwan brought up his half century with a six over extra cover off left arm spinner Robert Moore but not before he had driven the same bowler down the pitch and then pulling him to the midwicket boundaries for four from successive balls.
His 50 came in 27 balls, which included three sixes and four fours. However, after not seeing much of the strike Dowlin was bowled for 39 (3×4, 1×6) by Moore, who broke a 100-run second wicket partnership.
Shortly afterwards Sarwan was dropped by Moore when he was on 61 and the score on 126. Then the skies opened and stopped play after 12.3 at 17:21; Sarwan was on 64 and Leon Johnson, yet to get off the mark.
