By Delvon Mc Ewan
Arch rivals Demerara and Berbice yesterday ended the first round of the
Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Igloo Ice Cream two-day U15 tournament with first innings points from the President’s XI and Essequibo respectively.
Playing at the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) ground in Queenstown, Demerara dismissed the President’s XI for 71 in their first innings before responding with 235-4 from their allotted 38 overs with Joshua Persaud registering the first century of this year’s competition.
Persaud made 105 as his team took a first innings lead of 164.
Persaud and his skipper Bhaskar Yadram put on 103 runs in 13.3 overs for the second wicket.
Yadram struck 10 boundaries in making 56 off 44 balls and after his dismissal, Persaud and Alphius Bookie took the score to 208-2 at tea with Persaud on 98 and Bookie, 32.
Persaud reached his century with a cut behind point for two before hitting the next ball for four. It was his first century at the inter-county level and the second of his career following up his 106 made against East Coast two weeks ago in the Demerara Cricket Board inter-zone under-15 match at Enmore.
He was finally out caught by a diving Mark Ramsammy at cover off the bowling of Danesh Kowlessar attempting to up the tempo in search of quick runs. He struck 15 fours and three sixes and faced 95 balls.
Bowling for the President’s XI, Danesh Kowlessar ended with 2-9 from four overs while Junior Phillips who was unfortunate not to pick up a couple more wickets due to poor fielding by his team mates and Stephon Wilson finished with a wicket each.
Earlier, Sagar Hathiramani and Ashmead Nedd shared nine wickets between them to dismiss the President XI who won the toss and batted for 71.
Opening batsmen Anil Singh and Robin Williams found it very difficult to score against the opening fast bowling pair of Mark Baptiste and Colin Barlow and even with the introduction of Bhojnarine Singh runs were hard to come by with the fast bowler sending down two maidens in his first two overs. Demerara finally got the breakthrough with 19 runs on the board in the 14th over when Anil Singh (9) was caught at slip off the bowling of Singh. Christopher Campbell had a brief stay at the crease with Williams before Hathiramani bowled him for 06.
Rain stopped play in the 17th over for 55 minutes but, on the resumption, the President’s XI skipper Wilson hit Nedd over the midwicket boundary for six before Hathiramani struck again removing Wilson for 10. Williams (14) enduring innings finally ended when he missed a delivery from Nedd that crashed into his off-stump as the President’s XI went to lunch struggling at 54-4 with Chandradat Veerasammy on 08 and Khemchandra Hardyal on 01. After lunch, Veersammy and Hardyal added 10 runs before Hardyal was removed by Hathiramani to trigger a collapse as the last 5 wickets fell for 7 runs. Bowling for Demerara, off spinner Hathirmani, who bowled with a lot of variation took 5-11 receiving support from left arm orthodox bowler Nedd, who finished with 4-28 from 7.4 overs.
Trailing by 164 runs, the President’s XI’s second innings started horribly when Williams was bowled off the first ball of the innings by Singh. His opening partner Anil Singh soon followed him after he was removed by Baptiste for 3. Wilson then joined Campbell and the two batsmen who refused to be tied down began scoring in boundaries before Wilson was out off the last ball of the day when Hathiramani removed him for the second time of the match. Wilson made 15 which included three boundaries as the President’s XI ended the first day on 37-3 in their second innings, trailing by 127 runs. When play resumed yesterday, Campbell and Khemchandra Hardyal added the highest partnership of the match which was worth 33 runs before Hardyal who only contributed four runs was run out. With five wickets down Campbell continued to bat positively with his new partner Ramsammy bringing up his half century off 46 balls with a boundary behind square.
Campbell fell soon after to leave his team on 95-6 and struggling to make Demerara bat again. His 57 came off of 71 deliveries and included nine boundaries. At 97-7 rained stopped play and with the continuous downpour the match was eventually called off with the Demerara needing three wickets to complete an innings victory.
Off spin bowler, Hathiramani picked up 3-17 to finish with match haul of 8-28.
Over at the Everest Cricket Club ground, Berbice too took first innings points from Essequibo in a game that was also affected by the weather.
Essequibo, won the toss, batted and were bowled out for 124 off the last ball of the 38th over.
Extras contributed 35.
Essequibo’s skipper, Orlando Jailall and Arnold Adams added the biggest partnership of the match, a mere 20 runs.
The top scorer was Joshua Jones’s whose innings of 30 included two huge sixes while Darshanand Indar made 15.
Stephon Kamaledem, Junior Williams, Kris Ramnarine and Kevin Sinclair each picked up two wickets.
In reply, Berbice reached 194-7 at the end of their 38 overs, with Steven Deonarine top scoring with 44 while Kevin Sinclair (34) and Surendra Budhu (20) provided support.
The final day’s play was called off after approximately 45 minutes of play with Essequibo reeling on 20-5 in 11 overs, with Berbice’s pacers Williams and Kamaledeen picking up two wickets each.
The competition continues tomorrow and Thursday with Demerara tackling Essequibo at the Enmore Community Development Centre ground from 9:30a.m., and Berbice playing President XI at the Wales Community Centre ground.
