Berbice, Rest team to clash in final

Dec 06, 2010 Sports

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By Sean Devers
Many times the standard of play on the field is a reflection of the work being done off the field and it was not entirely surprising that the Rest team denied both Essequibo and Demerara a place in Friday’s final of the Carib/Pepsi T20 cricket competition at the Guyana National Stadium.
Berbice are the defending champions and their cricket board is the best run of the county boards in Guyana. Once again they easily progressed to the final with back-to-back wins over Demerara and Essequibo on the first two days of the Guyana Cricket Board competition.

The Rest team, a collection of the county team rejects and led by out of favour National middle order batsman Gajanand Singh, beat both Essequibo and Demerara to book their place in the final with a match in hand.
Essequibo has long been the whipping boys at the senior inter county level and as expected they lost both matches.
Like Essequibo, the Demerara Cricket Board is plagued by internal problems with two factions battling for power and Demerara’s shoddy performances suggested a lack of mental preparation and resulted in defeats to both Berbice and the Rest team.
On Saturday evening at Providence a small but vocal crowd watched as the Rest team defeated Demerara by 30 runs under lights after Essequibo had slumped from 72-0 to 108-8 and defeat against Berbice.
The Rest team opted to bat first in cool conditions on a slow track and sluggish outfield and reached 132-8 off their allotted 20 overs as off-spinner Zaheer Mohamed took 4-31 and got support from teenage leg-spinner Amir Khan who had 2-20.
Gajanand Singh (24), Trevon Griffith (24), Shemroy Barrington (20), Maxi DeJonge (16) and Anthony Bramble (12*) got into double figures for the Rest team, who had beaten Essequibo on the opening night of the tournament.
Using the same baffling strategy of using up plenty of ‘dot balls’ in the first six overs which affected Guyana’s efforts in the Champions League in South Africa, Travis Dowlin took 24 balls for his first five runs and after the first six ‘power play’ overs Demerara were laboring at 12-3.
Dowling, a player with Test experience, accelerated to score 35 from 37 balls with 2 fours and two sixes but failed to build a big score and put too much pressure on the other batsmen to mount a successful run chase as Demerara struggled to 102 all out in 19.2 overs.
Rajendra Chandrika (0), Chris Barnwell (run out without facing a ball) and Leon Johnson (1) perished in rapid succession and Dowlin’s ploy to bat out the new ball must have delighted the opening bowlers who conceded just 23 runs from their combined 8 overs with the new ball.
Kellon Carmichael bowled beautifully to finish with 3-12 from 4 overs while off-spinner Steven Latcha who shared the new ball with him had 1-11 from his 4 overs to keep the shackles on the batsmen.
This competition is being used to select Guyana’s T20 team to defend its Caribbean title next month.
After the impressive Carmichael trapped Chandrika LBW at 2-1, Barnwell fell at 3-2 and Johnson seemed unlucky to be given LBW to Latcha at 4-3, Dowlin and Steven Jacobs who had 1-14 from his four overs of off-spin in the Rest Team’s innings, consolidated the position before Dowlin was bowled by part-time spinner Gajanand Singh at 57-4 in the 12th over.
Dowlin struck left-arm spinner Eugene La Fleur for the first boundary in the innings in the 9th over, lofted Dion Ferrier for 6 to post the 50 in the 11th over and then smashed Singh for a six and a four in his first over before Singh (2-28) disturbed his stumps.
Jacobs offered some fight with 23 before he was also bowled by Singh at 65-5 in the 14th over and although Derwin Christian (14), Wasim Haslim (10) and Mohamed (10) reached double figures, their contribution was too little too late.
With 59 required from the last five overs with 4 wickets in hand it was always going to be difficult for Demerara to win although the Rest Team’s bowling attack lack another specialist bowler.
Christian hit a six but was soon spectacularly caught off Ferrier by Carmichael who then bowled Andre Stoll (1) and Mohamed in the penultimate over leaving 39 to win from the last over bowled by Ferrier.
Ferrier (2-32) bowled Khan with the 2nd ball to end the match and the Rest team who played excellent team cricket all night, were celebrating a place in the final ahead of the two far more established county teams.
Rain affected both games between Demerara and Essequibo and Berbice and the Rest team.
Demerara and Essequibo will clash for the third place from 15:00hrs on Friday while Berbice and the Rest team will face-off in the final from 19:00hrs on the same day to climax the competition.

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