Twenty-five wickets fall on shortened day 2 at Lusignan

DEMERARA finished an extraordinary day two on 12-5 in their second innings, 18 runs ahead of the defending champions Berbice after 25 wickets crashed at Lusignan in the final round of the Hand-in-Hand Under-19 Inter-county three-day encounter yesterday.

Because of overnight rain, play eventually commenced at 12:40hrs. Both teams struggled on a wicket which offered plenty of assistance for the bowlers on both sides, especially the spinners.

Poor shot selection and the evidence of poor cricket proved to be the downfall of both teams.

First up, Berbice produced an excellent bowling effort to restrict Demerara to 60 in 30.3 overs.

The hosts’ batting collapsed inexplicably with left-arm spinner Kelvin Umroa claiming 5-21 while Kevlon Anderson and spinner Nigel Deodat took two wickets apiece.

Adrian Hinds (28) and Joel Spooner an unbeaten 12 were the only batsmen to score double.

However, Berbice heroics were short-lived, as Demerara redeemed themselves with the ball to bowl out their opponents for 54 in 22.1 overs, Junior Sinclair was the only Berbice batsman, to offer any real resistance, with 27 off 44 balls.
Spinners Joel Spooner and Ashmead Nedd were the main destroyers with figures of 4-9 and 3-7 respectively.

With a slim lead of just six runs, Umroa created problems again for the hosts’ batsmen with three wickets when bails were lifted.
Pradesh Balkishun and Dequan Bamfield remained undefeated. Anderson and Deodat each picked up one wicket.