A man of the match performance from Guyana /Stanford Twenty 20 star Orin Forde, helped Malteenoes Sports Club (MSC) defeat Albion Community Centre by eight runs to win the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB)/ Carib Beer/ Pepsi sponsored national Twenty20 championship for first division clubs, yesterday, at the Albion Sports Complex ground.
Choosing to take first strike after winning the toss, MSC scored 123-8 thanks mainly to a robust unbeaten 42 from Forde.
They then returned to limit Albion to 115-8 from their 20 overs with Forde claiming 3-24 from 3 overs.
In the third place playoff match played earlier, Rose Hall Town Windies Sports Bar, led by a five-wicket haul from Abdel Fudadin (5-11), defeated Leguan by 55 runs to take that position, a trophy and $25,000.00.
In the feature game played in front of a vociferous crowd that cheered on the home team, MSC found themselves shakily placed on 53-4 in the 13th over with the cream of the batting, including skipper Steven Jacobs (4), the veteran Neil Barry (00) and the hard hitting opener Shemroy Barrington (26) back in the pavilion.
Albion employed an all spin attack to the Thomas Lands team which proved to be effective with national under-15 of spinner Sahadeo Somai sending his first over and the second of the innings from the northern end without conceding a run.
However, Barrington decided to open his shoulders from the third over of the innings bowled by Albion’s captain Ramnarine Chattergoon.
He got a thick outside edge that went past the hands of the slip fielder enroute to the boundary, then proceeded to hit the same bowler exquisitely between cover and extra cover past a diving Jonathan Foo for another boundary.
Disaster struck for MSC when Barrington drove a delivery from Chattergoon straight to Foo, who made a great stop and in the same motion threw the ball to Chattergoon with Jacobs well short of his ground after he slipped in his bid to get back.
