Rain, no play

Rain had the final say on the final day of the 2008 Carib Beer fifth round match between Guyana and the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) at the National Stadium, Providence, forcing the umpires to call off the game just after the tea break yesterday.

CCC were set to resume their innings on 96-2 with Floyd Reifer on nine and Nikolai Parris 27, still needing a further 174 runs to avoid an innings defeat.

Scores: Guyana 421 S. Chanderpaul 207*, L. Johnson 94. J. Noel 6-101. CCC 151 D. Bishoo 5-29, T. Garraway 3-48 and 96-2 J. Parris 33, N. Parris 27* D. Bishoo 2-18.

In an invited comment, coach Albert Smith said he was a bit saddened by the weather which prevented Guyana from forcing an outright win over their opponents.

“The weather over which we have no control did prevent us from forcing an outright win. However there were some positives in this match especially with the bowling that looked brittle on paper. Young Bishoo did bowl well in his first outing for Guyana at the senior level and received worthy support from Trevon Garraway,” Smith said.

For his unbeaten 207 in Guyana’s first innings score of 421, West Indies middle order batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul was adjudged the Man of the Match and Smith would like some of the batsmen to take a leaf out of his book when it comes to patience and application.

“Some of our batsmen need to take a leaf out of Chanderpaul’s book when it comes to displaying patience and application whilst batting. Those are two elements that have made him a very consistent batsman for the West Indies today.”

Guyana will journey to St. Thomas to take on the Leeward Islands from Friday. To date, a few of the players have been granted visas to travel and this situation is of serious concern to the team as Bishoo is one of those who have not been granted a visa by the United States Embassy to travel.