THE Lower Corentyne’s bowling attack kept Georgetown in check at the close of the opening day of the second round Jaguars Franchise League 3-day competition at Lusignan yesterday.

The City team, in response to Lower Corentyne’s first innings total of 165, closed on 154-8. Christopher Barnwell was unbeaten on 73, when bails were lifted.
Asked to bat first, Lower Corentyne suffered a batting meltdown in the morning session to go to lunch on 87-6, a position from which they did not recover, despite Jonathan Foo providing the lone stability with 63 late down the order.
Spinners Gajanan Suknanan, Steven Sankar and Ashmead Nedd created most of the problems for the visitors, as the trio shared nine wickets. Off-spinner Suknanan (4-43), was the most successful of the bowlers, while Sankar and Nedd had figures of 3-42 and 2-35 respectively.
Medium pacer Christopher Barnwell (1-4), did the early damage, dismissing Akeem Hinds leg-before-wicket for one, but it was the spinners Suknanan and Nedd who grabbed five top-order wickets to spark the collapse in the morning session.
Fellow opener Jason Sinclair made a fighting 19 before he was removed by left-arm spinner Nedd.
Suknanan then took charge and ripped through the top order, bowling Kelvon Anderson (11), Seon Hetmyer (16), and then taking the prized scalp of Devon Clements (25), who was bowled after putting up a short resistance.
Nedd, the national Under-19 spinner then added to his wicket tally when he bowled Alex Algoo without scoring.
Foo and Kasim Khan went to lunch on nine and one respectively, but soon after the interval Khan was dismissed off the bowling of Suknanan for five.
Foo then led some sort of recovery, and combined with Nial Smith (7) for an eight-wicket stand of 51 where he dominated the bowling somewhat, hitting two fours and four sixes.
But soon after, Sankar removed Smith, Kelvin Umroa (4) and Foo to wrap up the innings minutes before the tea interval.
Openers Robin Bacchus and Raymond Perez then started the innings in elegant fashion, adding 50-run for the first wicket, but when the partnership was broken after Perez was removed by spinner Umroa for 14, Georgetown batsmen collapsed in a heap.
Bacchus (36), was the other dismissed batsman with double figures, as spinner Khan (4-49), Clements (2-21) and Umroa (2-52), made steady inroads. Barnwell provided the highlight of the innings with five fours and similar number of sixes. He has so far faced 78 balls.
Meanwhile, in the other second-round matches Upper Corentyne faced East Coast at Port Mourant, West Berbice took on Essequibo at Bush Lot and East Bank clashed with West Demerara at Eve Leary.