Albion underlined their remarkable season with a spectacular Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club/ Berbice Cricket Board/ Busta Champion of Champions 40-over first division display at home to defeat last year’s finalist, Young Warriors by 102 runs yesterday and book their spot in the final.
Albion sealed their spot in the final of the knock out contest with a belligerent 95 from skipper, Kandasammy Surujnarine followed up by a stifling bowling performance from their spinners.
Surujnarine explained that this victory was more of a morale-boosting win for them.
“This is a moral boosting win for us, John [Jonathan Foo] is back for the final and although he was injured today, I think the younger guys did well to handle the responsibility…I think the most important area we need to improve on is the fielding, I think we were a bit reckless today with a couple of dropped catches and misfields but luckily the batting clicked,” Surujnarine stated.
Facing a 10-man Young Warriors for the first 16 overs, Albion won the toss and elected to bat first. They posted 273-9 in their 40 overs before containing the visitors to 171-8.
Surujnarine said, “Coming this morning and looking at the wicket, the toss was very important to win and capitalize as early as possible.”
The skipper missed out on a half century after gifting the wicket-keeper, Alex Algoo a simple catch but had earlier put Young Warriors to the sword with eight fours and one six.
Jeetendra Outar (15) added 57 for the opening stand.
Antonio February (22) and Ramesh Kasinauth (18) contributed important runs.
Adrian Sukhwa and Foo, who had retired not out on four contributed 16 runs each but it was Rajiv Ivan’s 35, decorated with two fours and one six which formed the base of a 77-run fourth wicket partnership with Surujnarine and take the game away from Young Warriors.
Left-arm seamer, Devindra Ramoutar was the pick of the bowlers with 3-52 while Kassim Khan returned 2-51 as Linden Austin (1-47), Trevon Stanislaus (1-47) and Ishwar Singh (1-37) picked up a scalp each.
In reply, Singh was run out for 40 consisting of seven boundaries.
Austin looked settled for his 36 while Vishaul Mohabir’s 25 seemed to keep Young Warriors fighting but when both of them were dismissed, their team looked to just bat out the overs.
Sarwan Chaitnarine bagged 3-39 while Ivan, Kasinauth and David Latchaya picked up one wicket each.
