La Ventura Secondary school held on to beat St John’s Community High school by 16 runs in an exciting encounter at the Versailles ground, West Demerara, yesterday.
St John’s seemed headed for a comfortable victory at 87-4 chasing a target of 134 set earlier by La Ventura but medium pacer Dhinesh Ramnauth had other ideas.
Appearing late in the innings (after the 30th over) he grabbed four wickets for six runs from only four overs as St John’s lost their remaining six wickets for 31 runs crashing to 118 all out in 37 overs.
The Anna Catherina side won the toss and invited La Ventura from Number One Canal to take first strike. A very fast outfield, combined with wayward bowling, and sloppy fielding allowed extras to lead all scorers with 58, as the Canal side were dismissed for 134 in 36 overs. Romeil Jaganadan top-scored with 18.
Emanuel Murray picked up 3-31 while Yudhistir Parbhudin claimed 2-25 bowling for St John’s. Parbhudin turned in a good all-round performance scoring 24 while Amir Mohammed chipped in with 20.
Ramnauth, who led the bowling with figures of 4-2-6-4, was ably supported by Othneil Cupidore who bagged 2-23.
La Ventura will now meet Georgetown winners Ascen-sion High School in one of the Demerara zone semi-finals while East Bank winners Houston Secondary School will take on the East Coast winner which is yet to be decided.
