The East Coast Demerara Jaguars defeated the Georgetown Pitbulls by five wickets at the Guyana National Stadium Sunday night in the  supporting game of the Guyana/ Trinidad and Tobago encounter.

Zaheer Mohammed orchestrated the win with 6-13 and scored an unbeaten  30 in his team’s response to Georgetown’s 105.

The Jaguars’ final total was 110-5.

Deon Ferrier was the chief wicket-taker with 3-16 from his four overs.

The win meant that the Jaguars’ had avenged their loss to the Pitbulls who defeated them in the semi-final  of the Digicel Summer Splash Twenty20 tournament.

Batting first, the Georgetown Pitbulls strolled meekly to 105 all out from 18.5 overs as East Coast Jaguars, led by a spirited bowling performance from Mohammed, ran through the Pitbulls lineup.

From the inception, after winning the toss, the Georgetown Pitbulls were never allowed to settle. They lost their first wicket with the score on eight and lost wickets at regular intervals subsequently. Jamal Hinckson was the standout batsman for Georgetown as Mohammed bamboozled all of his victims with his deceptive variations.

Pitbulls, struggling at 21-3 in the fourth over, saved some face with their largest partnership of the match between Hinckson and Deon Ferrier, who scored 16. That alliance yielded 33 runs before Mohammed had Ferrier caught behind by Joseph Perry in his first over.

Hinckson and Raul Browne eked runs in the field but in one fell swoop three wickets fell with the score on 69.
Brown was clean bowled; Delon Heyliger trapped lbw by Mohammed and Troy Gonsalves was run out by the full length of the pitch by Perry after Hinckson had worked the ball to short leg.

The Pitbulls were in dire straits at 69-7. Hinckson started to open his shoulders a bit more but was stymied by the bowling of Mohammed and his spin cohorts Surojpaul Deosarran, who picked up 2-15 from his  four overs, Videsh Lall and Imran Khan.

Hinckson was the last East Coast batsman to lose his wicket when he was caught by Chris Pattadin on the backward square boundary. Mohammed finished with 6-13 from 3.5 overs.

The Jaguars had a tentative start with opening batsmen Ryan Ramdass and Pattadin not being able to middle many of the deliveries. Trevon Garraway was swinging  the ball around and creating some problems for the batsmen.

The batsmen gradually regained their confidence and began to stroke the ball with more fluidity. Pattadin was more circumspect than the former West Indies opener . The two ran their singles while Pattadin hit the occasional boundary.
Pattadin was adjudged lbw by Shannon Crawford off the bowling of offspinner Deon Ferrier with the score on 37 after 7.3 overs. After that dismissal, Ramdass and Wasim Haslim (11) pushed the score to 61 before  Ferrier made inroads when he had Haslim caught by Leon Johnson at short midwicket off the first ball of the 12th over and then removed Ramdass off the fifth.

Mohammed, who struck a delivery from Leon Johnson for six back over his head, lost Krishna Arjune, who was run out for nine, in the 16th over when the score was 82. The running became erratic and shortly after Vishnu Ramjit was run out for two when the scoreboard read 89.

Mohammed ran with purpose and the Georgetown players started making simple mistakes. The Jaguars required two runs for victory from the last over and off the first ball of the over Mohammed smacked Trevon Griffith straight back over his head for six for the victory.