By Faizool Deo

A CENTURY from skipper Christopher Barnwell and quality bowling by his spinners propelled the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) to an innings and 66-run victory over Police in the final of the GISE/Star Party Rentals/Trophy Stall First Division Two-Day Cricket Competition over the weekend.

DCC built on their day-one lead yesterday at the Eve Leary ground and then punished the Police batsmen in their second innings.

Scores in the game Police 170 and 115, DCC 351 in their first innings.

The first hour belonged to the DCC skipper.  The 31-year-old carried his overnight score of 64 past the three-figure mark, before rain interrupted play.   Barnwell, who had struck eight fours and three sixes in his 103, could not add to his total when play recommenced.  Kelvin Leitch’s off-spin bowling was on target as he trapped the centurion LBW in his second ball.

The end of Barnwell trigger a batting collapse as DCC moved from 305-5 to 351 before they were bowled out just before 13:00h.  Leg-spinner Vishal Jaigobin, who took over from Leitch and off-spinner Jason Heyliger cleaned up the tail.

Jaigobin finished with 4-50 from 13.5 overs, while Heyliger nabbed 2-87 from 28 overs and pacer Raun Johnson 2-85 from 24 overs.

Despite the ascendency by the lawmen, victory was still out of sight.   It became near impossible to envision when the home team returned to the middle in their second innings and DCC introduced spin.

Leg spinner Steven Sankar got the wickets of both openers to trigger the side.  He took a hard return catch to dismiss Chemroy Kendell (9), before he struck Paul Tyndell (21) LBW.

As the first innings, Kemol Savory (13) again looked good. He struck fast bowler Qumar Torrington for back-to-back exquisite straight fours, before losing his leg -stump the next ball.

Andrew Lyght (Jnr) also looked solid at the crease, he played a few expansive looking shots, and evaded the effect that the spinners, including Ashmead Nedd, were having on the home team’s batsmen—that was until hero of the first innings Totaram Bishun came into the attack.  The left-arm spinner who had taken six wickets on Saturday added another to his match haul in his first over as he got the set batsman to top edge a shot that he caught.

Bishun and his counterpart Nedd took over the game, with the latter grabbing 4-23 from 7.2 overs and Bishun 3-5 from three overs, which restricted Police to 115 in 25.2 overs.

For his match haul of 9-40 from 16.2 overs, Bishun was named man-of-the-match.