FOLLOWING their emphatic first round victories, Police Sports Club (PSC) and Guyana National Industrial Corporation (GNIC) will be brimming with confidence as they head into their respective quarterfinal matches today, in this year’s Georgetown Cricket Association/Queensway Open Cup tournament against defending champions Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) and Transport Sports Club (TSC) respectively.

The Malteenoes Sports Club (MSC) ground is the venue for the GCC/PSC matchup and this can be an exciting one to watch, since PSC inflicted a shocking 40-run defeat over pre-tournament favourites MSC in their first-round encounter of a tournament that has lucrative prizes in cash and kind up for grabs.
In that encounter which was witnessed by GCC’s Vishal Singh, Raj Nannan and Leon Johnson, PSC got useful contributions from Pernell London, Jason Reynolds and Troy Benn with the bat, while Reynolds, siblings Troy and Trevor Benn, Vishal Jaigobin and Jason Heyliger combined to dismiss MSC below their team’s total.
Apart from the trio who contributed with the bat, PSC will be hoping that Ryan Rajmangal, Rawle Brown and Shameer Fazal make useful contributions with the bat, with the same going for Troy Benn, who like Browne can tear apart any local bowling attack on his day.
No doubt Trevor Benn, a national selectee and skipper of the PSC team, will be leading their bowling attack against the Bourda Boys, with valuable support from his brother Troy, Jaigobin, Reynolds and to an extent, London.
Their opponents, who scored a convincing victory over Demerara Cricket Club in last year’s final when Johnson’s ton overshadowed Gajanand Singh’s ton for DCC, will look to Johnson, Vishal Singh, Jeetendra Sookdeo, Gavin Singh, Robin Bacchus and Ellon Fernandes to post a huge total.
Their bowling will be led by Bacchus, who can expect worthy support from Sookdeo, Gavin Singh, Raj Nannan, the vast-improving Joshua Wade and Chidanan Shivram, who recently returned from Canada for this fixture. Nigel Duguid and Cyril Garnath will call play at 09:30hrs.
At the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) ground, GNIC can definitely consider themselves favourites for their encounter against TSC and will be looking to skipper Elton Baker, Shawn De Souza, Ranole Bourne, Premchand Sookdeo, Royston Crandon and chairman of the West Indies selection committee Clyde Butts.
Butts and his son Collis, Bourne, Guyana and West Indies Under-19 fast bowler Ronsford Beaton, Keon Joseph, Rawle Merrell, Matthew Marques, Orlando Fraser and Leroy Bristol will take charge of GNIC’s bowling attack for today’s encounter, with Eddie Nicholls and Edward Bowen calling play.
Not much can be said of their opponents, whose batting lineup will have Carl Rambharose, Stephon Sampson, Oslyn Batson and Shawn Massiah to the fore, with the bowling being left in the hands of Batson, Massiah, Leon Peters and the dependable left-arm orthodox spin of Kevin Ross.
DCC who will be depending on their skipper Christopher Barnwell, Trevon Griffith who recently returned from the Sagicor High Performance Centre in Barbados, Gajanand Singh, Cohen Ismond and Andrew Lyght Jr. to lead their batting attack, when they host Gandhi Youth Organisation (GYO) in Queenstown.
Added support with the bat will come from Jamal Hinckson, Dennis Squires, Derwin Christian and Dexter George, their national Under-19 fast bowler who is no rabbit with the bat along with the pugnacious duo in Paul Wintz and Andre Stoll.
Wintz, Stoll, Barnwell and George will take care of the new ball for the GCA T20 champions, with spin being taken care of by their left-handed back of the arm wrist bowler in Totaram Bishun, who has been a thorn in his team’s opponents this season, Squires and Omesh Dhanram.
Like TSC, not much can be said about the Woolford Avenue-based GYO club, but what’s for sure is that national Under-19 opener Tagenarine Chanderpaul will look to be the solid foundation at the top of the order, in their batting lineup.
Ryan Shem, Kamesh Yadram, Shivnandan Roopnarine and John Champagne all contributed heavily with the bat when GYO defeated a hapless Ace Warriors in the first round last week Saturday and, should GYO seek to get past DCC today they will have to repeat and even better that performance, with support from Surendra Hiralall, Abhilash Dookie and Anthony Ifill.
Ifill, Dookie, Roopnarine, Pravindralall Persaud and Garfield De Rouche will take care of the visitors’ bowling lineup, but with such a powerful batting lineup from the home team being presented on a platter to them, only a miracle in some form or the other can get them through to tomorrow’s semifinals.
At the Everest Cricket Club ground on Camp Road, GDF will be led by Marcus Watkins who will be receiving commendable Shemroy Barrington, Jeremiah Harris, Terry Fraser, Ameer Khan, Randy Lindore and Brijaddar Singh, will be looking to demolish the home team.
Lindore, Harris, Barrington, Khan, Dennis Legay and Nikita Nestor, will take charge of the Army Boys bowling lineup which should be looking to dismiss their opponents who will be relying on Rajendra Chandrika, Chandrapaul Hemraj, Christopher Surat and Adrian Singh, to post a mammoth total, with national leg-spinner Amir Khan, Hemraj and Surat leading their bowling.
According to the GCA’s Competitions Committee, the winners of today’s matches will meet in the semi-final tomorrow, where the winners of the GCC/PSC encounter will face the winner of the GDF versus Everest matchup at GCC.
In the other semi-final which will be played at the DCC ground, the winner of the DCC/GYO fixture will take on the winner of TSC and GNIC, with the final set to bowl off next Sunday at a venue to be named.
PSC: Trevor Benn (C), Troy Benn, Vishal Jaigobin, Jason Heyliger, Jermaine Reynolds, Rawle Brown, Ryan Rajmangal, Shameer Fazal, Pernell London.