NATIONAL Under-17 Select XI skipper Ronaldo Ali-Mohammed emulated Raymond Perez and Adrian Sukhwah, by hitting a half-century of his own on the rain-truncated second day of their final round Guyana Cricket Board/Raj Singh Insurance Under-19 Inter-county fixture against Demerara.Resuming the day on 211 for 9 with Ali-Mohammed on 44 and Tameshwar Motieram yet to score after the entire first session was not played due to rain and seepages on the pitch, Ali-Mohammed posted his 50 from 135 minutes and 92 balls with eight fours.

A sweetly-timed drive through point for his eighth four off Carlton Jacques, enabled a calm-looking Ali-Mohammed to become the third batsman in his team to score a half-century. He added 51 valuable runs with Motieram for the final wicket, before Akshaya Persaud (1 for 28) removed Motieram for 3.
Shurfane Rutherford (4 for 43), Ershad Alli (3 for 28) and Malcolm Hubbard (2 for 28) had done the damage earlier for Demerara, who later saw Rutherford and Ronaldo Renee add 53 without loss off 10 overs at tea, at which point another shower forced the players off the field.
Rutherford opened his account with two fours through cover off Joshua Jones and struck two more in his 30, with Renee’s contribution to the total being 17. Demerara will be looking for an additional 198 runs for first-innings points, when play starts at 09:30hrs today.
At Enmore, Berbice resumed the day on 196 for 6 and after being forced to stay indoors for most of the day, made great use of the limited playing time they got to reach 273 for 7 at the close for a lead of 134, in reply to Essequibo’s first-day 139 all out.
Daniel Lewis and Ritesh Omrao were the not-out batsmen for the Ancient County on 27 and 34 respectively, after they lost Kassim Khan, who was dismissed by left arm orthodox spinner Akini Adams who has so far taken four of the wickets to fall.

By Calvin Roberts