In a scintillating day of fun for a worthy cause, the Diplomatic Corps defeated hosts, Everest Masters by four wickets yesterday in their second charity event of the year.
British High Commissioner, Greg Quinn said, “I’m very much happy, this is far beyond what we were expecting, I think the last time we did this was back in 2017 and we raised around $1200 US, so far we are about $2000 US and we have another event later this week which we hope will obviously add to that total.”
Speaking on the upcoming event, Quinn said that there will be an auction of some of the prizes and other items.
The fundraiser match saw Everest Masters winning the toss and opting to bat. They posted 136-7 in their allotted overs but that wasn’t enough as the Diplomatic Corps unit reached 139-6 with three balls to spare.
Leading the charge for the Everest Masters was opener, Safraz Sheriffudean with an anchor-like 32 from 35 balls. Sheriffudean’s innings which included two boundaries was supported by Ravi Narayan with a run-a-ball 14.
However, Everest’s progress towards the latter part of the innings was pegged back by off-spinner, Richie Looknauth (3-27) who removed both Sheriffudean and Sahadeo Hardaiow in successive deliveries.
Looknauth was slapped for consecutive sixes by Ronald Jaisingh over mid-wicket before he was dismissed for a four-ball 12, while Ijaz Mohammed (15) and Bisham Singh (20 not out) propelled the hosts to a decent total on a bouncy wicket.
Former national youth captain, Travis Persaud, Ian Jones and Bank of Baroda’s Jayadev Peruthanath took one wicket each.
In reply, the Diplomatic Corps were cruising throughout most of the chase compliments of a second-wicket stand of 56 between Shaheed Mohammed and Sanjeev Datadin.
Mohammed seemed to be the likely aggressor early on but Datadin made use of a mis-stumping and dropped catch to press the Masters’ bowling during his run-a-ball 24 which featured four boundaries, three of which came from a single over bowled by seamer, Joshua Kissoon.
But the Diplomatic Corps lost their way when female national left-arm spinner and player of the match, Kaycia Schultz (3-21) was brought into the attack. Schultz immediately had success by breaking the partnership with the run out of Datadin and bowling of Quinn as well as William Adu-Krow.
When Jessica Teasdale was dismissed by Ijaz Mohammed, Schultz bowled Shaheed Mohammed, who made 52 from 37 balls, decorated with eight fours and one six to see Diplo-matic Corps slip from 70-1 to 90-6.
But an unbroken 49-run partnership between Looknauth (22 not out) and Persaud (29 not out), who stroked three boundaries in the final over when 10 was required, saw them over the line.
After the match, Quinn said that he was pleased with the contest and happy with the camaraderie shown. He noted that he was the only player from the 2017 team but was most of all happy that everyone came together for the worthy cause.
The funds raised will be donated to four children’s homes, namely, Sophia Youth Empower-ment Organisation, Guyana Golden Lives Organisation, Mahaica Children’s Home and St. John’s Bosco Boys Home where five juniors will receive one-year memberships to the Everest Cricket Club.
Demerara Distillers Limited (El Dorado rum), Banks DIH Limited, Azeem Baksh, Windsor Estates, MDS Guyana Limited, Trophy Stall, Mohamed’s Enter-prises, Cara Lodge, the British High Commission and the BK Group of Companies assisted in sponsoring these events.
