Despite a century from Robin Williams, East Bank scampered to a three-wicket win over East Coast in a last-ball thriller at Lusignan Community Centre in the Demerara Cricket Board Under-19 Inter-Association tournament.
After the contest was reduced to 45 overs per side, East Coast won the toss and elected to bat where they posted 188-4 from their allotted overs.
East Bank, in reply, required two runs off the final ball and welcomed two wides to reach 189-7 in 44.5 overs
Williams, a national youth player capitalized on eight chances out of 15 dropped catches by East Bank to go on and stroke 109. Williams began his innings in a conventional fashion where he shared a 53-run opening stand with Alvin Guriah (20) but shifted gear after Andrew Samaroo (6) was caught and bowled by Vickash Jaikaran (2-29) to hit 10 sixes and a single four.
The right-handed batsman went on to share a third-wicket union of 111 with Pradesh Balkisson (28 not out) until he decided to chip down the wicket to left-arm spinner, Zachary Jodah only to be stumped with the ‘keeper gathering a delivery that went away from the batsman.
In the chase, East Bank skipper, Navindra Persaud was the first to go down after being caught at first slip off of Sankar Sahadeo but West Indies Under-16 batsman, Mavindra Dindyal and Andsuegga Rodrigues shared in an 85-run partnership to bring their team closer to victory.
Dindyal got off the mark with a powerful pull through mid-wicket off of Andrew Muniram which was followed by another four and a six in the same area before cutting a four through backward point to bring up the team’s fifty in the 12th over that leaked 19 runs.
Dindyal went on to score two more fours and a six in his top score of 58 before attempting forward defence to leg-spinner, Shafeek Khan and got an outside edge that carried to first slip with his team still 76 runs away from victory.
Rodrigues scored at a pedestrian’s pace with a lot of big shots that were mistimed. He consistently dropped to his knees and attempted to blast over cover, succeeding once with a beautiful cover drive that went into the fence for one of his four boundaries in his 43 until he was caught at cover off of Samaroo.
East Coast got themselves back into the match with a few quick wickets as Ushardeva Balgobin, Dwain Dick and Aaron Beharry got out to poor shots with East Bank slipping to 173-6.
However, Yeudistir Persaud turned the tide for East Bank with an unbeaten 43 consisting of three sixes and one four.
Persaud was faced with an equation of 29 runs from the last three overs but held his nerve to hit Shivanand Gossain for consecutive sixes into the billboard at the long on boundary. His team required seven runs from the final over and he duly pulled the first ball into the mid-wicket boundary to set up the match.
Meanwhile, over at the Wales Community Centre, Georgetown defeated West Demerara by 49 runs in a low scoring affair.
West Demerara won the toss and inserted Georgetown to bat who made 118 all out in 38 overs. West Demerara in reply, crumbled to 69 all out in 25 overs.
Georgetown was led by Adrian Hinds with a top score of 28, supported by Dequan Bamfield with 18 not out and Bryon Bowen with 15.
Satesh Bisram grabbed 5-29 and Joshua Rahaman returned 3-20.
In reply, Daniel Mootoo claimed 4-9 and Joel Spooner snatched 3-30 as only Taijanath Tadunauth reached double figures with 18.
The two winners will now face each other in the final round at Wales while the East Coast and West Demerara will look to register a win at Lusignan tomorrow from 09.30 hrs.
