Anthony Antonio’s hat trick and Paul Thomas’ entertaining half century set up an easy victory for East Bank over West Demerara in their second round match of the Demerara Cricket Board under-15 Inter-Zone competition played yesterday at the Everest Ground, Carifesta Avenue.
East Bank who had lost to East Coast by 19 runs in their first round match, defeated West Demerara by 104 runs. After winning the toss and opting to bat, East Bank lost two early wickets for 21 runs before skipper Sagar Hathirmani joined forces with opener Paul Thomas and added 119 for the second wicket partnership. Thomas batted aggressively to hit his team’s top score of 70 including eleven boundaries before being stumped off the bowling of Troy Persaud.
Hathirmani soon followed as the West Demerara bowlers took four quick wickets to leave the scorecard reading 167-6. Batting at number 6, Mark Ramsammy was partnered by number 8 batsman Rawle Douglas (14) and the two added a sixth wicket partnership of 63 runs. With the dismissal of Douglas in the 45th over by Aftab Basir, Ramsammy began to look for quick runs.
He was doing so quite comfortably by taking 19 off two of Basir’s overs, before running out of partners as last man Jamal Michael was out LBW to Kumar Ramlakhan with the score on 259 with 2 deliveries to go in the 50th over. Ramsammy was left unbeaten on 47 which was graced with six boundaries, while extras contributed 61 to East Bank’s total. Medium fast bowler Aftab Basir and left arm orthodox bowler Retesh Samaroo were the chief wicket takers for West Demerara with figures of 3-50 and 2-43 respectively.
When West Demerara began their reply, Permanand Ramlakan was the first batsman to be removed LBW to Bhojnarine Singh with the score on 5. Complemented by wayward bowling, the West Demerara scoreboard soon read 30-1, before Anthony Antonio’s introduction proved disastrous for the West Demerara batsmen as he took a hat trick to leave the score card reading 30-4.
It seems as though the West Demerara side would be dismissed for another score under a hundred, but a well accumulated half century by Ganesh Jitlall, saved his side from another disastrous batting display.
Lower order batsmen Churkiram Outar (16), Aftab Basir (14) and Ganeshwar Kowlessar (14) supported Jitlall in their team’s total of 155 all out in the 49th over. Bowling for East Bank Anthony Antonio finished with figures of 4-28 from 9 overs, receiving support from Bhojnarine Singh who took 2-33 from 8 overs.
The competition continues today at Enmore ground, East Coast Demerara with a matchup between Georgetown and East Coast.
