Regional Super50 cricket…T&T advance to Saturday’s final, beat Guyana by four wickets in semis

Oct 27, 2011 Sports

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By Sean Devers
Trinidad and Tobago qualified for their third consecutive Regional One-Day final in Guyana when they beat host

Guyana by four wickets at the Guyana National Stadium last night in the first semi-final of the Regional Super50 cricket competition.
Jason Mohamed led the way with a responsible unbeaten 65 from 79 balls after opener Justin Guillen had fashioned a confident 90-ball 63 as T&T reached 201-6 off 46.1 overs replying to Guyana’s 200-9 off 50 overs on a sluggish track with lots of turn for the spinners.
Guyana employed some strange tactics. They used Jonathon Foo, who does not bowl, to bat at number eight even as specialist opener Norman Fredericks was again left out and Skipper Assad Fudadin was used as makeshift opener and not surprisingly, paid the price for wasting 193 dot balls in their innings on the lush green outfield.
Leon Johnson (66) scored his second consecutive fifty in the competition and versatile all-rounder Steven Jacobs again showed his worth with 32 in an eventual losing effort in front of a very disappointing crowd after the game began 15 minutes late due to a mid-day shower.
Despite his form leading up to the competition, Trevon Griffith (12) again failed to fire and hit pacer Ryad Emrit to cover at 22-2 after Fudadin (2) had clipped leg-spinner Samuel Badree to deep mid-wicket at 2-1.
Travis Dowlin struggled to get the ball away as Badree and off-spinner Sunil Narine bowled dot ball after dot ball after Emrit had also shackled the batsmen with the new ball in overcast conditions.
Dowlin edged Narine, who confused the batsmen with his both ways spin and top-spinners, to slip as the Guyanese limped to 49-3 in the 29th over to bring back memories of the team’s pedestrian-pace scoring at the top of the order during their Champion League t20 campaign in South Africa last year.
Johnson eased the pressure with a well timed cover driven boundary off Badree and followed it up with a glorious square drive for four two balls later before hitting the game’s first six in the match off left-arm spinner Dave Mohamed in the 30th over, but Narine who bowled a succession of dot balls ensured the Guyanese were never allowed to score freely.
Jacobs, one of the few batsmen who looked willing to try to bat positively for his team, stroked the expensive Dwayne Bravo down the ground for four before Johnson’s beloved sweep shot; this time a slog-sweep, again caused his demise as he skied a return catch to

off-spinner Sherwin Ganga as he wasted another opportunity to get his first century for Guyana and leave the score on 130-4.
Jacobs fell to Ganga 12 runs later and when Chris Barnwell (21) was bowled by Emrit at 176-6 in the 46th over after he had dumped Narine for six in an over in which he was dropped twice by the Keeper William Perkins, Guyana were in deep trouble.
Royston Crandon (23) was taken in the deep at 185-7 and Foo (8) who seemed unsure as to his role in the team, never showed aggression when attack was required with a few balls remaining. He was soon leg before as he got himself into a tangle to Narine in the penultimate over at 190-8.
Derwin Christian was soon bowled by Emrit and Guyana had lost a cluster of wickets towards the end of their innings and seemed about 30 runs short of a winning total.
Emrit had 4-39, Ganga 2-48 and Narine, the only bowler to ever capture consecutive five-wicket hauls in regional 50-over cricket, took 2-26 from 12 overs to take his wicket tally to 14 with one match to go.
The live-wire Jacobs struck in the first over when he trapped Perkins leg before for a duck and bowled Skipper Daren Ganga (8) at 47-2 but although his 12 overs cost just 20 runs and he got the ball to turn at a good pace, Chris Barnwell was expensive, Paul Wintz lacked control and the inexperience of off-spinner Steven Latcha and his inability to really spin the ball meant that Jacobs was not offered the type of support needed defending such a small target.
Royston Crandon (2-42) removed Bravo (8) at 75-3 to a stunning one-handed catch at slip by Dowlin and also got rid of the left-handed Guillen at 105-4.
But Mohamed, who had a half-century in a losing cause against CCC and an important 43 against Jamaica,

remained to the end although Sherwin Ganga (1) was bowled by Wintz and Emrit (17), who seemed lucky to survive a leg before shout against Johnson, was run out by some good work by Jacobs.
Some loose work in the field by the Guyanese and Fudadin’s insistence of using Barnwell for too long when he was leaking runs, aided T&T’s march to their 14th final.
They play the winner of today’s second semi-final at Providence between Jamaica and Sagicor HPC in the Day/Night final as they hunt their 11th title at this level.

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