Wolf Warriors and Mike’s Wellwoman were crowned male and female champions of the 2012 Guyana Floodlight Softball Cricket Association, Hadi’s Word/City Mall, nationwide softball tournament which ended Saturday at the Ministry of Education ground Carifesta Avenue.
The clash of the day proved to be the male Open final between Wolf Warriors and Regal XI and decent sunshine, a fairly large crowd and commentary by Inderjeet Persaud, Sean Devers and John Ramsingh, helped to make the atmosphere a memorable one.
Regal’s skipper Troy Kippins called correctly at the toss and elected to bat first. Except for a 42-run second wicket partnership between Patrick Rooplall and Lakeram Roopnarine, Regal lost wickets at regular intervals and folded for a paltry 117 all out in 14.4 overs.
Roopall (28) and Richard Latif (27) were the main
contributors with the blade in a disappointing batting display for Regal. Asif Safee with 3-11 was adjudged player of the match.
Wolf Warriors opening pair of siblings Sarfraz and Mohammed Karim, scored 10 runs off the opening over, en route to their side getting off to a aggressive start. The pair continued the momentum bringing up the half century partnership in the fifth over of the innings.
However after top scorer top scorer Safraz perished for 28, with the score on 60 in the sixth over, the Warriors lost four wickets for 53 in the next six overs, to be 103/6 in the 12th over.
But Ameer Nizamudin, who was unbeaten on 13 at the end, made sure no further hiccups occurred as he swung the final delivery of the 13th over, for a massive six over the square leg-boundary – to lead his side to four-wicket win.
Wolf Warriors finished on 119/6 after 13.
Doran and Devand Persaud were regal’s main wicket takers with 2-22 and 2-33 respectively.
The women’s final featured a number of national female players such as Erva Giddings, Abena Parker, Joanne Van Sertima, Akase Thompson and Trishanie Cort.
Taking first strike, the Wellwoman ladies were in early trouble against their Berbice counter-parts as they slumped to 36/5 in the fourth over.
They recovered thanks to a 49-run, sixth wicket partnership between national players Thompson (11) and Van Sertima (25 not out), which aided them in reaching 80/6 in their completed 10 overs.
Van Sertima innings included two slog swept sixes over deep backward square off the bowling of Sherika Campbelle, sister of West Indies women’s player Shemaine Campbelle.
Needing 81 to win, the girls from the Ancient County also found themselves in an early spot of bother, after being reduced to 41/5 after five overs with the light fading.
The organizers, seeing this problem, brought in the floodlights and after a 10-minute break, action resumed.
It ended up with the Strykers needing 12 to win of the final over, but they fell short with Campbelle the last batter out run out (one of five run outs for the innings), to leave her side 72 all out and eight runs short.
The over 40 final saw Floodlights team defeating Success in a high scoring encounter.
Batting first Success made 161 all out in their allotted overs with Khemraj Baljit (51) and Baldeo Muller (36) being the principal scorers.
Ramchand Ragbeer was Floodlight’s best bowler with 4-26.
In reply, Floodlights got over the line with 26 balls to spare in a six-wicket victory, scoring 162-4 in 16.2 overs thanks to a man of the match performance from Wayne Jones who scored an unbeaten 57 not out. For his efforts, Jones received G$10,000.
All the victorious teams received a first prize of $100,000, runners up $50,000 and players of the match $10,000.
