GCB/CGI 3-day Franchise League ...Essequibo maintain lead as 6th round starts tomorrow

GCB/CGI 3-day Franchise League …Essequibo maintain lead as 6th round starts tomorrow

Oct 05, 2017 Sports

Nat T20 players to miss next two rounds

By Sean Devers
The sixth round of the GCB/CGI three-day Franchise League starts tomorrow from 09:30hrs with Essequibo leading from the inception with four victories and a draw.
Those players selected to play in the Antigua Independence tri-nation T20 tournament will miss the next two rounds and Georgetown will be the hardest hit; losing Guyana Captain Leon Johnson, Christopher Barnwell, Robin Bacchus and Jamaican Ramaal Lewis, while Lower Corentyne will lose Jonathon Foo, Gajanand Singh and Veerasammy Permaul and Essequibo will be without Ricardo Adams, Kemo Paul and Ronsford Beaton.
East Bank will be without Steven Jacobs and Sherfane Rutherford, Upper Corentyne will miss Anthony Bramble, East Coast will have to do without Chanderpaul Hemraj, while West Demerara will lose the services of Romario Shepherd.
Three of the four sixth round matches are scheduled to commence tomorrow, while the game at Lusignan between leaders Essequibo and East Coast will start Saturday.
West Berbice host Georgetown at Bush Lot, Lower Corentyne and West Demerara collide at the Young Warriors ground in Canje and Upper Corentyne battle East Bank at Port Mourant.
West Demerara remain number two on the points table with Georgetown, East Bank and Lower Corentyne still in the race to finish in the top two.
East Bank beat West Berbice, Essequibo defeated Upper Corentyne, Georgetown whipped West Demerara and Lower Corentyne crushed East Coast in the last round and will be keen for more success.
At Bush Lot, West Berbice will bank on the tournament’s leading wicket-taker, left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie who has five five-wicket hauls and 47 victims with the ball and Shimron Hetymer who has kept his place in Test side for the West Indies tour of Zimbabwe later this month.
Hetymer, with 114 in this tournament, will hope for support from Arthley Bailey, Avishkar Sewkarran and Motie, who made fifty in the last round.
Georgetown will bank on Raymond Perez, who scored 138 in the last round, Martin Pestano-Belle, Sunil Singh, Marvan Prasad, Quincy Ovid-Richardson, Nkosie Barker, Dexter Solomon and Paul Wintz.
Wintz and Joshua Wade could share the new ball, while Ashmead Nedd, on the back of 6-76 in the last round, off-spinner Gajanand Suknanan, with a best of 6-22 against Essequibo, Steven Sankar and Devon Lord could do the spinning.
At Canje, Lower Corentyne will depend on gifted school batsman Kevlon Anderson, who registered his maiden ton at this level in the last round, Waheid Edwards, Alex Algoo, Seon Hetymer, Devon Clements and Jason Sinclair.
Raun Johnson, with two five-wicket hauls and Nail Smith with one, give their team the most potent pace attack in the tournament. They should get support from left-arm spinner Kassim Khan who also has a five-wicket haul this season.
West Demerara will hope that Tagenarine Chanderpaul, who made 176 in the second round fires at the top of the order, while Raymon Reifer, with a century in the last round, Akshaya Persaud, Mahindra Dhanpaul, Tevin Imlach and Travis Persaud can all bat.
West Demerara’s bowling hinges on Reifer, Richie Looknauth, who has bowled impressively this season and Kesram Seyhodan.
At Port Mourant, Upper Corentyne have a strong batting line with Kandasammy Surujnarine, Balchand Baldeo, Rajiv Ivan, David Latchaya, Kevin Sinclair, Shawn Pereira and Clinton Pestano in their team. Pestano, Dmitri Cameron, Pereira, Baldeo, Latchaya and last season’s top wicket-taker, Eon Hooper has again been among the wicket this year.
East Bank will depend heavily on Sachin Singh, Mark Robe, Darshan Persaud, Renaldo Ali-Mohammed and Ershad Ali. Keon Morris, Ali, Totaram Bishun and Ali-Mohammed will take care of the bowling.
At Lusignan from Saturday, Essequibo will miss Paul, who has the highest score in the tournament (177) and Ricardo Adams (2 tons and a 5-wkt haul) but Anthony Adams has four five-wicket hauls and a century (137), while Kemol Savory is one of four Essequibians to register hundreds this year and along with Kevin Boodie has produced one of the better batting line-ups this season even without their most experienced batsman Shiv Chanderpaul, who could be back from England for this round. Pacer Joshua Jones and Anthony Adams could have a lot of work to do with the ball.
Test batsman Rajendra Chandrika should be back after missing the last round and along with Brian Sattaur, Bhaskar Yadram, one of 15 centurions after five rounds, will be a part of a strong East Coast batting line-up, while Yadram, Amir Khan, Kumar Bishundyal and pacers Cordel Mars and Royston Simon could do the bulk of the bowling on a track with good carry.
Sixteen centuries have been scored in five rounds with Ricardo Adams making two, while 16 bowlers have taken five-wicket hauls with Motie taking five for last placed West Berbice and Anthony Adams taking four for leaders Essequibo. However, the overall standard has been low with many matches ending inside two days.