ESSEQUIBO suffered humiliation at the hands of Berbice in their final round of the Inter-County Under-17 tournament at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ground yesterday.

Set a winning target of 178, the Cinderella County team were bowled out for a paltry 41 to suffer a humiliating defeat by 136 runs. The Essequibians put up an appalling show with the bat in their run chase.

There was no real effort by their batsmen as they threw away their wickets cheaply and were skittled out in 14.3 overs.

The Berbicians exposed the fragility of the Essequibo batting and on a pitch which held no terrors, only Sheldon Charles (13) and Orin Gibson (8) reached double figures.

Hemraj Harilall, Gourav Ramesh and Abdul Ramsammy had figures of 3-4, 3-15 and 3-10 respectively for Berbice. Jonathan Rampersaud was the other wicket-taker.

Deciding to bat first, man-of-the-match Sarwan Chaitnarine struck a composed 51, with three boundaries. He received support from Mahendra Gopilall who made an unbeaten 25 and Zeynul Ramsammy with 22. Wasim Mohamed claimed 5-28 in a losing effort.

This year’s tournament was made possible through the personal contributions of Lalta Gainda, Nazimul Drepaul, Anand Sanasie, Rahaman Khan and Richard Jodah and was managed through Cricket Guyana Inc., following the High Court ruling last Wednesday where the GCB was deemed illegal.