GCB Inter-County Super50
Demerara easily retained their Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Inter-County Super50 Championship yesterday, dismissing a lump challenge from Essequibo to win by seven wickets at the GCC ground, Bourda.
Tevin Imlach, captain of Demerara, called the toss correctly and chose to bowl. Led by Ronaldo Ali Mohamed, the defending champions stifled Essequibo, restricting them to 164 all out inside 47 overs to set up what turned out to be a fairly simple chase. After being sent in to bat, Essequibo toiled to get to their eventual total as the Demerara attack was on song with Ali Mohamed and Bernard Bailey getting early breakthroughs, removing Kevon Boodie (1) and Keemo Paul (1) cheaply to begin proceedings.
However, Kanhaiya Ramkarran (49) and Kemol Savory (21) staged a brief revival to take Essequibo from 5/2 to 45 before the latter got out, caught off the bowling of Richie Looknauth.
captured 12 wickets in the tournament.
From there it all went downhill, and were it not for Ramkarran batting through most of the innings, they could have been bowled out for a lower total.
In fact, only valuable contributions from Keanu Harry (26) and Quentin Sampson (19) helped to push Essequibo past 150 in the end. Ali Mohamed bowled with aggression and accuracy to lead the way for Demerara, capturing 4/47 from his quota of 10 overs.
Ashmead Nedd played a supporting role, capturing 2/25 while Richie Looknauth, Bailey, Devon Lord, and Akshaya Persaud all took a wicket each. In response, Demerara eased to victory despite losing the leading run-scorer of the tournament, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, who retired hurt for 33 after being struck. Nandu and Tevin Imlach, however, both struck calculated half centuries as Demerara breezed to victory. In fact, Nandu anchored the run chase with his patient 57 (80 balls), while Imlach scored an unbeaten 53 (70 balls) to guide the side over the line.
While Essequibo did a commendable job of keeping things tight, Imlach and Nandu ground out their runs as Demerara fittingly remained unbeaten to raise the trophy for a second time in consecutive years.
Demerara were so dominant in victory that all the individual accolades were shared by their players. Chanderpaul collected the award for the most runs, while Devon Lord with 12 wickets captured the Most Wickets.
The national team will be selected based on the concluded competition. That squad will be announced shortly.
