….Windwards, Barbados also victorious

By BRIJ PARASNATH

DEFENDING champions Guyana kept alive their chances of successfully defending their WICB Regional Under-19 50-overs title when they overpowered Jamaica by 31 runs in their sixth round match at the Sion Hill playing field in St Vincent yesterday.In the other matches, Windwards (58 for 2 off 6.2 overs; Anil Matthew 39 not out) also maintained their place atop the standings when they thrashed Leewards (54 all out in 20 overs; Jonathan Taylor 3 for 9, Rasheed Fredericks 3 for 7) by eight wickets in a low-scoring match at Park Hill playing field while Barbados (204 for 3 in 45.4 overs) also enhanced their chances of vying for the top position when they whipped the ICC Americas team (203 all out in 50 overs) by seven wickets at the Arnos Vale Sports Complex.
Windwards will clash with Trinidad and Tobago in one of the final round key matches today. But even if they lose to the Trinidadians they will definitely clinch one of the two qualifying spots for the final.
However, both Guyana and Barbados are in strong positions to grab the other berth so their face-off today will determine the other finalists between the two leading teams at the end of the seven-team round-robin series.
The Guyanese outfit showed their fighting qualities and turned back the challenge of the Jamaicans in a hard-fought battle at Sion Hill.
Having batted first the Guyanese frontline batsmen struggled to come to terms with the Jamaican spinners especially left-armer Jeavor Royal (10-2-21-2) who dispatched Keemo Paul and Bhaskar Yadram for one and five respectively.
Earlier, Ronaldo Renee faced 39 balls for 13 runs while Sherfane Rutherford negotiated 84 balls and hit one six before he departed for a patient 34. They posted 48 for the first wicket stand in 17.4 overs.
Subsequently, Guyana lost four more wickets and had reached 89 for 5 in 37.3 overs when Yadram departed.
But Joshua Persaud and Ronaldo AliMohammed restored hope of playing out the full fifty overs as they added a crucial 48 runs for the sixth wicket and pushed the total to 137 (43.6) when Persaud was dismissed for 27.
AliMohammed was partnered by Looknauth Chinkoo and they went on the offensive and added a further 31 runs for the eighth-wicket stand. AliMohammed topscored with 42 and slammed four sixes off 37 balls while Chinkoo made 24 that included two sixes off 16 balls.
Guyana innings of 190 all out closed on the final ball of the 50-over innings with Tyrone Daley (7-1-20-3) and Michael Frew (10-1-44-2) emerged as the other main wicket-takers for Jamaica whose batsmen also found the going very tough and were all out for 159 in 47.4 overs.
Daley topscored with 24 while Rutherford (6.4-0-17-5), Kheshram Seyhodan (10-1-30-2), Keemo Paul (9-1-35-2) and Akenie Adams (10-3-21-1) shared the wickets.
ICC Americas made 203 in 50 overs with Akashdeep Gill 85 (2×6, 8×4, 146 balls) and Sagar Patel 32 being the main run-getters. The successful bowlers for Barbados were Chemar Holder (10-0-44-3) and Joshua Bishop (7-0-28-2).
Leniko Boucher (69 not out) and Yvan Grant (50 not out) shared an unbroken 113-run fourth-wicket stand that propelled Barbados to their seven-wicket win over ICC Americas as they amassed 204 for 3 in 45.4 overs.