Two over-40 players took the honours yesterday at the Malteenoes ground as the home team lost by 6 runs in a one-over bowl out after their Georgetown Cricket Association Busta 2nd division 20/20 match ended in a pulsating tie.
Shawn Holder, who last represented Guyana in the 1988 Regional under-19 series in Barbados, smashed an attractive 63 and brought back memories of intriguing battles with 52-year-old former Test off-spinner Clyde Butts in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Neil Barry Senior, another over-40 player with first class experience, supported the diminutive right-handed Holder as MSC made 163-4 off their allotted 20 overs.
Jermaine Grovesnor took 3-25 for GNIC who reached the exact total, losing 8 wickets when their overs expired to produce the first tie in the competition.
Butts, the chairman of the West Indies selectors who took 10 wickets from 7 Tests and 348 from 87 First Class games, smashed a pugnacious 51 and along with Berbician Cylus Gibson, who made 30, tore into the young MSC spin attack, as the teenage off-spin pair of Daniel Gravesande (3-41) and Shaquille Williams (2-44) gave away 85 runs from their combined 8 overs. Anthony Bowen was also expensive; picking up 2-40.
Butts clobbered 18 of the 19 runs made in the one ‘Super Over’ for GNIC and the MSC pair of Barry and Troy Lewis could only take 13 from Butts’ over when MSC batted.