Berbice trampled defending champions Demerara by 119 runs to book their spot in Saturday’s final of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB)/ Hand In Hand Mutual Fire and Life Insurance Under-19 Inter-County 50 overs tournament at Lusignan Community Center Ground, East Coast Demerara yesterday.
Demerara were bundled out for an embarrassing 105 in 38.1 overs, chasing 225 for victory set by three-day champions, Berbice.
West Indies youth player, Ashmead Nedd won the toss for Demerara and decided to chase after seeing the pitch showing signs of a lot of moisture and the outfield being soggy.
Alex Algoo and Junior Sinclair added 49 for the opening wicket, the same partnership total they shared in their previous match against the Select U-17, with Algoo being the aggressor. The pair rotated the strike and saw the new ball pair off but assaulted the spinners, hoisting Nedd for a huge six over the southern end with the breeze off the Atlantic assisting. Algoo tried to lift off spinner, Stephon Wilson but got the toe end of the bat, this time against the breeze allowing Adrian Hinds to settle under it and dismiss him for 23.
Sinclair and Javed Karim then dented the spirits of the defending champions as Nedd and Wilson operated from both ends but failed to remove the pair who found the gaps easily, picking the ones and twos as well as getting the odd boundaries in adding 81 for the second wicket. The fielding for Demerara lacked the killer instinct with four catches going down that eventually proved costly, including a simple catch on the boundary that could have dismissed Sinclair, who was on 43.
Sinclair was then hit on his ankle but managed to continue and bring up his half century from 83 balls as well as the 50 partnership and the 100 for the team in the 26th over.
Karim decided to play his strokes, finding the boundary often but Sinclair fell victim to the aggressive batting and was drawn out by Dwain Dick and stumped by West Indies youth wicketkeeper, Joshua Persaud who was standing behind the stumps for the first time in this competition.
Sinclair had paddled Dick for a boundary the previous delivery but ended his Man-of-the-Match innings on 61.
Karim was frustrated by Nedd who stifled the runs and in trying to break the shackles was caught by Wilson running in from long off for 45.
The two new men at the crease, Kevin Sinclair and Steve Deonarine, added 33 runs before both were removed for 19 and six respectively but Kevlon Anderson and Garfield Benjamin added cameos of 22 each to lift Berbice past 200.
However, five wickets from the last seven balls of the innings restricted the boys from the Ancient County to 224.
Jeremiah Scott troubled Benjamin in the first five deliveries of his final over before uprooting his stumps with the final ball while Qumar Torrington dismissed Anderson and Leon Swammy off successive deliveries but missed the hat trick as he strayed down leg.
Nevertheless he bounced to Keith Simpson who hooked and was out caught while Trevon Stanislaus was run out off the final delivery.
Torrington ended with 3-20 while Nedd claimed two scalps, Dick, Wilson, Scott and Saddiq Khan picked up one apiece.
In the chase, Demerara started briskly with Robin Williams and Hinds adding 38 before Williams edged to Anderson at slips for 16 to signal the collapse.
Hinds seemed to be the only settled batsman and battled for his 32 while Nedd, 13 and Wilson, 18, who came in at number eight was the only other batsman to reach double figures. Simpson was the key bowler, bagging 4-18 from 9.1 overs while Kevin Sinclair took 3-15 from his 10 overs.
Berbice will now face Essequibo at Tuschen in the final round while Demerara will be in a must win match against Select U-17 at Everest.
