A couple of wickets from left-arm spinner, Veerasammy Permaul, brought him to a magical 500 wickets and moved Guyana Jaguars within four wickets of victory heading into the final day against Trinidad and Tobago Red Force today.
The West Indies Championships continued at Providence yesterday with Jaguars taking their overnight second innings score of 53 without loss to 177 for five declared. Red Force were set 403 for victory after being bowled out for 98 in their first innings and closed the penultimate day on 122 for six, still trailing by 281 runs.
Permaul, 29, joined the likes of Lance Gibbs, Carl Hooper and Roger Harper as the Guyanese to reach the landmark when he bowled Jason Mohammed (33) who had forged a 62-run partnership with Jeremy Solozano (34) and then got the edge of Joshua DaSilva’s bat, the batsman popping a simple catch to Leon Johnson at first slip.
After the match, Permaul said “I’m overwhelmed, over the years I’ve been working hard on this and you can see I’m reaping the benefit of this.” He added that he had always wanted to achieve this feat and since reaching this goal, he has not set a new target but would be happy to see where the total ends up at the end of his career.
Permaul had capitalized on the destruction Keon Joseph (2-15) left Red Force after dismissing Keagan Simmons via caught behind for duck and bowling Darren Bravo (02) with a steamy good length delivery that rocketed into the middle stump.
With the wicket favouring the slower bowlers, Kevin Sinclair also picked up his maiden first-class wicket after trapping Solozano leg before wicket while Devendra Bishoo left Red Force limping with the wicket of Yannic Cariah who made 27 from 54 balls during his hour-long stay at the crease. Yannick Ottley (13) and Akeal Hosein (5) are currently at the crease.
Earlier, Jaguars’ openers, Chandrapaul Hemraj and Tagenarine Chanderpaul picked up where they had left off but was only able to add 12 more runs to their overnight score of 53.
Chanderpaul duly converted his overnight tally of 29 to 33 which came from 98 balls in 91 minutes and featured five boundaries. Hemraj, though, went on to score 54 after resuming on 22. His innings was highlighted by five boundaries, the last of which was belted through mid-wicket before the next delivery from Bravo was full and nipped back in to uproot his off-stump.
Leon Johnson fell for 15 as Jaguars ended the first session on 136 for 3. Christopher Barnwell, who made 21 despite being dropped on 20 and Vishaul Singh added 44 for the fourth wicket but Ottley struck twice in one over to remove Barnwell, who chopped on to his stumps and Anthony Bramble.
Singh went on to make 37 not out from 72 balls during his two and half hours at the crease. His innings featured six boundaries, two of which were consecutively hit through square leg off of Hosein. Sinclair was also at the crease on 12 not out when Jaguars declared 25 minutes prior to lunch.
The match resumes at 09.30 hours today.
