JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, CMC – Guyana gave another unconvincing performance, and crashed to their third straight defeat in the Champions League Twenty20 Championship yesterday when the Highveld Lions comfortably out-muscled them by nine wickets.
The Guyanese were unsuccessful in defending a target score of 149, as half-centuries from Richard Cameron and Lions captain Alviro Petersen led the South African side to victory with 29 balls to spare in the 14th match of the competition at the Wanderers.
Cameron struck five fours and six sixes in a List-A Twenty20 career-best, undefeated 78 from 42 balls, and Petersen hit six fours and two sixes in an unbeaten 57 from 38 balls. They added a Lions T20 record 133 – unbroken – for the second wicket.
Petersen fittingly formalised the result, when he steered Steven Jacobs’ only delivery to third man for a single.
“We thought if we had been able to get a total of at least 160-170, we would have had a good chance,” said Guyana captain Ramnaresh Sarwan.
“But the way Cameron and Petersen batted, it appeared that still would not have been enough.”
He added: “I thought we got away to a good start when we batted, but we were unable to maintain the momentum. . .We were able to pick-up the boundaries, but we unable to rotate the strike consistently.
“It would appear there is a gap [between cricket in the Caribbean and this competition], but we have players in this team that are capable enough of handling these circumstances. We just have to work a lot harder on our individual games.”
The result condemned the Guyanese to remain at the bottom of the five-team ladder in Group-B with no points from their three matches, after they lost their opening match against Royal Challengers Bangalore by the same margin last Sunday at SuperSport Park, and then suffered a 31-run defeat to the Mumbai Indians last Thursday at Kingsmead.
The Lions have provisionally climbed to second in the table on four points behind the South Australia Redbacks ahead of yesterday’s second match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore at Kingsmead.
Guyana face South Australia Redbacks at the Wanderers in their final group match tomorrow – the same day that the Lions meet Royal Challengers Bangalore in their last match also here.
“We have one more match to play, and obviously, we have gotten a lot of stick, and hopefully, we can play well to regain some pride,” commented Sarwan.
Steven Jacobs hit five fours in the top score of 34 from 37 balls for the Guyanese. The former Young West Indies captain was playing in his first match of the competition.
The embattled Sarwan made 21, but no other Guyana batsman passed 20.
The Guyanese batting was undermined by Ethan O’Reilly with a List-A Twenty20 career-best four wickets for 27 runs from his allotted four overs that earned him the Man-of-the-Match award.
Esuan Crandon made an early breakthrough for Guyana, when he had opener Jonathan Vandiar caught behind for eight fencing a delivery that rose sharply.
But the Guyanese bowlers came under from Cameron and Petersen, as the two batsmen punished anything slightly off line or length.
Davendra Bishoo suffered, when Cameron reached his 50 from 35 balls with his third six pulled over the mid-wicket boundary, and Cush saw Petersen reach the same landmark from the same number of deliveries with his last four driving to long-on, where Jonathan Foo badly mis-fielded the ball.
Earlier, Guyana too, were setback early, when Travis Dowlin was dubiously adjudged lbw to O’Reilly for seven in the second over with a delivery, which television images suggested would have missed the stumps, and travelled down the leg-side.
Sarwan came to the crease, and played a handful of delightful strokes, mostly through the off-side, where he is particularly strong, before he was caught at backward point off Craig Alexander slicing a drive in the fifth over.
When Sewnarine Chattergoon was caught at mid-on off O’Reilly for four in the sixth over having faced just three deliveries, Guyana were 42 for three.
Christopher Barnwell joined Jacobs, and they added 37 for the fourth wicket in the best stand of the innings.
But they were dismissed, as three wickets fell for nine runs in the space of 10 balls to leave the Guyanese wobbling on 88 for six in the 14th over.
Barnwell was run out for 11 failing to beat Petersen’s throw from extra cover to the ‘keeper, Jacobs was caught at deep long-off off Aaron Phangiso, and Esuan Crandon was also run out for three failing to beat Zander de Bruyn’s through from short fine leg also to the ‘keeper.
Some useful, late hitting from Cush, Royston Crandon, and Derwin Christian beefed Guyana’s total up, but Cameron and Petersen proved they were still way short of an adequate total.
