The North Under 19’s ensured that at least one team from the North would feature in a zonal final after getting past the South Zone Under 19’s by 95 runs at Inshan Ali Park, Couva on Thursday.
After being put into bat, North posted 206 All out off 49.2 overs. Sachin Emrit held up the middle order with 80 runs off 109 deliveries, inclusive of nine boundaries. There were useful contributions from Joshua James who made 25 and Isaiah Fernandes 24. Zachary Siewah got to 20 before he was run out, together with Emrit, he helped restore the North innings from 46-3 to 100-4.
The best partnership came for the sixth wicket, 66 runs between James and Emrit as they gave further impetus to batting taking the score to 182-6. Abdur Rahman-Juman added an unbeaten 14 off 12 to help push the score past the 200 mark. Keifer Ghisyawan 3-22, Nickyle Jaim 3-24, and Jacen Agard 3-66 shared the wickets.
The South Zone top order batters never came to terms with the bowling and lost their first three wickets with the score on 16 within the space of seven deliveries. They slid further as wickets fell at 34, 44, and 48. 60-7 became 61-8 and only a top score of 25 from Keifer Ghisyawan, batting at number ten, helped the score past three figures. He was the last man out with the score on 111. Abdur Rahman-Juman was North’s best bowler taking 3-6 off eight overs. Abdullah Cambridge took 2-23 and Joshua James 2-30. Joshua Davis took the other wicket to fall with figures of 1-18.
Abdur Rahman-Juman was named man of the match.
North will meet East Zone in the Finals on Friday 31st at the National Cricket Centre in Balmain Couva.
North Under 17’s Stumble at Semi-final Hurdle
After breezing through the preliminary phase of the Zonal competition, the North Under 17 squad chose the worst time to register a subpar performance. North met their South East counterparts on Wednesday and were handed their first defeat of the competition, a six wicket loss at the National Cricket Centre, Couva.
North won the toss and decided to bat and were bowled out for 179 in 47.2 overs. South East had little trouble getting to the target, knocking off the runs in 40.4 overs for the loss of four wickets.
North were hoping to rebound from a poor batting performance in their previous game but were reduced to 24 for the loss of four wickets, inclusive of two runouts, by the 11th over. Arshad Harrilal tried his best and took the fight to the South East bowlers making an unbeaten 47 runs off 49 balls and together with Nakalon Babb 37, put on 43 for the sixth wicket with the score on 104. That, however, was the only major resistance from the Northerners.
Six of South East’s bowlers got into the wicket’s column with Aidan Racha 2-23 and Christian Rampersad 2-35 while Scyon Charles, Brendan Boodoo, Zane Maraj, and Akshay Seecharan took one wicket each.
Stevon Gomez was unfortunate to be dismissed, caught and bowled by Arshad Harrilal for 49. Brendan Boodoo and Zane Maraj were also out in the forties, 47 and 41 respectively. An opening partnership of 80 between Harrilal and Akshay Seecharan along with an 88 run stand between Maraj and Boodoo for the third wicket saw South East reach 172-3 and despite Boodoo falling four runs later, the damage was already done. Darius Popalie took 2-25, Arshad Harrilal picked up 1-36 and Maleek Lewis 1-39.
Brendan Boodoo was named man of the match.
