Demerara took care of Berbice by seven wickets in the final preliminary round match of the El Dorado Inter County limited overs competition at the Wales Community Development Centre ground yesterday.

Jonathan Foo

The match, which serves as a dress rehearsal for the day/night final between the two teams at the Providence National Stadium on Saturday, saw Berbice making 195 all out and Demerara responding with 196-3.

Berbice never recovered from a disastrous start after they won the toss and decided to bat and were indebted to batsman Jonathan Foo, who batted at number six, and all rounder Esaun Crandon, who batted at number eight, for giving Demerara a decent total to chase.

Foo, who top scored with 69 and Crandon who

Esaun Crandon

scored 57 spared their team’s blushes with a seventh wicket stand of 69 after the Berbicians were tottering on 86-6 at one stage.

Foo struck five fours and two sixes whilst Crandon’s knock included three fours and two sixes.

Berbice had slipped to 17-4 with openers Sewnarine Chattergoon and Richard Ramdeen, skipper Assad Fudadin and Royston Crandon all back in the pavilion.

Ramdeen and Fudadin both made ducks while Royston Crandon, in his first game after returning from the Champions Trophy tournament in South Africa, made only four. Narsingh Deonarine made 23.

Rajendra Chandrika

Kellon Carmichael was the pick of the Demerara bowlers with 3-26 from 10 overs while there two wickets each for Christopher Barnwell, Zaheer Mohammed and Sauid Drepaul.

Barnwell ended with 2-31 from nine overs, Drepaul 2-51 from 10 and Mohammed 2-60 from 10.

Steven Jacobs ended with 1-35 from 9.2 overs.

Unlike Berbice, the Demerara team got off to a good start chasing the inadequate total with openers Rajendra Chandrika and Shemroy Barrington putting on an opening stand of 59.

Barrington eventually fell for 31 an innings which included four boundaries.

Chandrika went on to top score with 59 with six fours

Leon Johnson

and one six and after the cheap dismissal of Barnwell for 10, Leon Johnson and Gajanand Singh put on an unbroken fourth wicket partnership of 66 to see their team home.

Singh was not out on 41 and Johnson unbeaten on 38.

Devendra Bishoo was the most economical bowler with 1-29 from 8.1 overs while Narsingh Deonarine ended with 1-32 from eight overs and Veerasammy Permaul 1-38 from 10 overs.