… to face defending champions Berbice on Sunday
DEMERARA comfortably recorded victories in all three of their matches to remain unbeaten and secure a spot in the final of the annual El Dorado 50-Over cricket competition, which will take place on Sunday at the Albion Community Centre ground.
Triumphs over defending champions Berbice, President’s XI and Essequibo earned Demerara the maximum 12 points, while Berbice who claimed two victories and suffered one defeat accumulated nine points to make it into the final to have a chance at retaining the title.
President’s XI, with one win and two losses finished the three rounds with seven points and Essequibo were unable to acquire a point, after losing every match.
The final preliminary round concluded on Tuesday with Demerara clinching a 20-run victory over the President’s XI at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ground while Berbice cruised to a nine-wicket victory over Essequibo at the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) ground.
In the Demerara/President’s XI showdown, rain intervened enough to cause overs to be reduced and to bring the Duckworth-Lewis system into effect.
GCC saw the return of Demerara’s most senior player and West Indies’ most reliable batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who just finished an impressive run with English county side Warwickshire. The left-hander entertained with an unbeaten 95, to propel the Demerara batting lineup to 253-4 in 45 overs.
Trevon Griffith (51), Leon Johnson (35) and Vishaul Singh, who was left unbeaten on 40 in the middle with Chanderpaul, were able to cash in on scoring while Gajanand Singh (0) and Shemroy Barrington (17) missed out on getting some runs under their belts.
Keyon Fraser claimed the wickets of Singh and Johnson while Dion Ferrier and Steven Jacobs removed Griffith and Barrington, respectively.
In  the President’s XI’s reply, good starts came from Sewnarine Chattergoon (18), Krishna Deosarran (27), Keith Fraser (27) and Dion Ferrier (22*) but even with the resistant innings of 67 from Jacobs, they could not keep their required run rate up as rain hit.
When rain stopped play, President’s XI were 199-7 with nine overs remaining to get 54 runs but they were 19 runs behind the par score when the D/L system was implemented which caused them to lose by 20 runs.
Totaram Bishun, Griffith and Kellon Carmichael claimed two wickets each while Paul Wintz supported with one for Demerara.
In the Berbice/Essequibo match, Essequibo were once again bowled out for a meagre total. Essequibo batted first to set a target of 179 in 47 overs with Yougeshwar Lall top-scoring with 49 while Eugene La Fleur grabbed 3-25 for Berbice.
In pursuit of the target, the defending champs lost the wicket of Richard Ramdeen but sterling performances from Assad Fudadin (74) and Narsingh Deonarine (66), who both remained unbeaten, were enough to comfortably get Berbice to victory by a huge margin.
Meanwhile, the Competitions Committee of the Guyana Cricket Board in a release yesterday said, taking into consideration the time of the year, Sunday’s El Dorado Inter-county final between Berbice and Demerara will start at 09:00hrs. The final will be played at the Albion Community Centre ground.