By Delvon Mc Ewan
Defending champions Demerara and Berbice yesterday secured first innings points at the end of the first day of the second round of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB)/ Igloo Ice Cream Under-15 Inter-County competition.
In matches played at the Enmore and Wales Community Development grounds,
Demerara took first innings points from Essequibo while Berbice was also ahead on first innings in their match against the President’s XI.
Batting first Essequibo were quickly bundled out for 52 before half centuries from Alphius Bookie and Kurt Lovell enabled Demerara to secure a first innings lead of 149 after the defending champions scored 201-2 from 41 overs in their first innings.
Lovell top scored with an unbeaten 70 while Bookie ended on 66 not out, his second consecutive unbeaten innings following his 41 against the President’s XI.
Bookie and Lovell joined forces after Bhaskar Yadram was removed by spinner Deshan Moses for 29 and the score 52-2.
Both batsmen batted responsibly and the Demerara score reached three figures when Bookie played an elegant straight drive off leg spinner Moses that raced to the boundary. Lovell was the more aggressive of the two bringing up his half century with a ball that bisected short third man and backward point for four.
Bookie, who batted at number three, soon brought up his half century as he hit the fiery le Joshua Jones who was bowling with a great deal of pace but no control, for consecutive boundaries over mid-off and through midwicket. Both batsmen manipulated the ball into gaps and hit 14 boundaries in their 149 runs partnership.
Bookie, who was dropped off Moses before he had scored a run, was extremely severe on Jones in the latter part of the innings; driving, pulling and cutting him at will.
The other wicket to fall for Demerara was Reaaz Ali who was removed by Pura Colahar for 16 with three boundaries.
Earlier, Essequibo were dismissed for a paltry 52 in 32.5 overs, with only captain Orlando Jailall getting into double figures. Jailall top scored with 23 an innings that contained two boundaries.
Essequibo got off to a horrible start losing its first five wickets with only 20 runs on the board as pacers Colin Barlow and Bhojnarine Singh combined to deliver a spell of fast bowling that was effective due to their accuracy in line and length. Essequibo were indebted to a 22-run, fifth-wicket partnership between Jailall and Govindra Gobin who made eight. When Jailall was removed with Essequibo reeling at 42-6, Vice-captain Jones entered and, as he did against Berbice in the first round, he tried up the tempo with some big hitting. He was successful in his first attempt by hitting Anthony Antonio for a boundary down to long-on, but on the second attempt his wicket was dislodged by the same bowler.
Essequibo’s last three wickets fell for six runs.
Demerara’s bowlers sent down 1`1 maiden overs including five consecutively in the Essequibo’s innings. Barlow and Antonio ended with figures of 3-3 and 3-5 respectively while left-arm orthodox bowler, Ashmead Nedd was very economical in his 10 overs that caused 17 runs whilst picking up two wickets.
With a deficit of 149 runs to make Demerara bat again, Essequibo ended a forgettable day on 35-5 and 114 runs behind. Nedd has so far taken three of Essequibo’s second innings wickets while Barlow picked up the other two. When Essequibo resumes its innings today, Jailall who took 24 balls to get off the mark will continue his innings of three runs while his partner Vishal Singh will look to provide a valuable score to make Demerara bat again.
Across at the Wales Estate Ground, West Demerara, Berbice gathered first innings points from the President’s XI. Batting first, the President’s XI was bowled out for 56. Stephon Wilson and Khemchandra Hardyal were the only batsmen to reach double figures scoring 11 and 10 runs respectively.
Bowling for Berbice, Stephen Kamaladeen took 5-19 while all-rounder Kris Ramnarine finished with 2-0. Berbice, in reply reached 129-7, with Dineshwar Budhoo top scoring with 36 and Alex Algoo chipping in with 24. Junior Phillips led the President’s XI attack by taking 4-29 while Hardyal returned with the ball to pick up two wickets.
