Essequibo fell to their second defeat, this time a 160-run loss at the hands of Berbice who bundled them out for 13 runs in the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) senior female Inter-County competition at the Lusignan Community Center, East Coast Demerara yesterday.
Reduced to 24 overs-a-side after rain threatened the day’s play Essequibo won the toss and elected to bowl first. The move saw them picking up wickets consistently early on before a century stand from Erva Giddings and Katana Mentore put paid to their efforts.
Berbice were in a spot of bother at 40-3 losing the wickets of Shenita Grimmond for 25 with the score on 38 while Mayon Bason removed Melanie Henry and Sherika Campbell with successive deliveries.
Tremaine Smartt fell cheaply with the score on 54 while Marina Samaroo departed with Berbice 64-6. However Mentore and Giddings added 109 for the seventh wicket. Mentore brought up her half century from 74 balls including four fours and a six while Giddings batted briskly to be unbeaten on 45 from 46 balls as Berbice closed on 173-5. Bason was the pick of the bowlers, collecting 4-27 from her five overs.
Essequibo found the Berbice pacers a handful and at one stage seemed in danger of suffering the indignity of being dismissed without reaching double figures.
Giddings was the chief tormentor picking up a five- wicket haul while Smartt rattled the stumps of Bason without scoring to start the slide.
Eight batters failed to score as Giddings ripped through the middle order, uprooting the stumps of Keisha Tucker to claim her fifth wicket, after having been on a hat trick with the wickets of Althea Newark and Estelle Lewis.
Dian Prahalad also found herself on a hat trick but at the end of her over, the match was almost done as Essequibo limped to 9-9 from nine overs. In the final over, Akeema McKenzie pulled Plaffiana Millington for the lone boundary of the innings before paddling a shot in the air as Giddings fittingly settled under the ball to end the innings. Giddings with her 5-5 to add to her 45 runs was adjudged the Player-of-the-Match.
While Essequibo played with a full team and faced twice as much overs as they did in their match against Demerara the previous day, the batting struggled as the followed up their 40 run match with this dismal performance.
Berbice will now face Demerara in the final round of the competition tomorrow at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC), Bourda to see who will be crowned champions.
