ALBION Community Centre and Rose Hall Town Farfan and Mendes were declared joint champions of the 2013 Tenelec Inc. Under-15 cricket competition last weekend in Berbice after rain caused 190 minutes play to be lost in the two-day final, resulting in the match ending without a first innings decision. It was nevertheless enthralling cricket from both sides. In the match played at Albion and which was scheduled to commence at 10:00hrs on Saturday, but because of overnight and morning rain as well as seepage started at 15.00hrs.
Rose Hall lost three early wickets, all to offspinner Asif Ally to be 22 for 3 but skipper Veremootoo Senwasone was joined by Bashkar Yadram and together the pair put on 47 for the 4th wicket before Senwasone went for 21, at 69 for 4.
Yadram then put on 25 for the 5th wicket with S Bachaus (5) after which he added another 34 for the 6th wicket with Kevin Anderson (4) before he fell to pacer Joshua Harrichand for 64, at 128 for 6. Harrichand then picked up the last four wickets to see Rose Hall bowled out for 162 in their first innings. Harrichand ended with 5 for 29 while Ally took 3 for 57.
When Albion began their response they were given a good start of 39 runs by wicketkeeper/batsman Adrian Sukhwa and Asif Ally but Sukhwa was run-out for 24 and Ally was bowled by left-arm spinner Keith Simpson for 12, in quick succession, to drop to 41 to 2.
Matthew Hardyal (15) and Joshua Harrichand (11) then put on 20 more for the 3rd wicket before Simpson removed both of them. Simpson then had Karran Arjpaul caught for 10 to pick up his fourth consecutive wicket.
At 81 for 5, Albion were under pressure to avoid a first-innings loss but resolute and sensible batting from Vivkanand Gagjit (19) Ramesh Kasinauth (10) Rajiv Sookram (14 n.o.) and Renaldo Rowe (1 n.o.) together with some delaying tactics in the last hour, saw the match end in a tense no-result affair with Albion ending on 135 for 8.
Keith Simpson finished with 4 for 18 and offspinner Bashkar Yadram 2 for 55. Yadram was adjudged Man-of-the-Match.
At the presentation ceremony the president of the Berbice cricket board, .Keith Foster, praised the two teams for reaching the final and putting on good performances over the two days.
He disclosed that the 2014 competition is scheduled to start very soon and urged both teams as well as the other clubs to start preparations immediately especially since the Inter-county competition is scheduled for late March.
Both teams were presented with the winning trophy as well as $25 000 each while Yadram received t trophy for being Man-of-the-Match.