AWESOME AMBARD ATTACK MAULS MUCURAPO

The cricketing renaissance at East Mucurapo Secondary in 2015 saw the school enter the PowerGen SSCL North Zone U14 competition for the first time in many a year. It was hoped that these young students would draw inspiration from their successful senior team and eventually develop into outstanding players themselves. Early signs in the season’s first game were indeed encouraging as the ‘Compre’ boys eased to a confident and comprehensive 8-wicket victory over Tranquillity Secondary. Their next game, however, would see them get a painful reality check as their young inexperienced team took the short walk across to Fatima grounds to face off against their Mucurapo Road neighbours. It would prove to be a game where the difference in cricketing pedigree was about as vast as that between the North and South poles.

Whilst the East Mucurapo starting 11 was comprised entirely of Form 1 students playing only their second ever competitive match for the school, the Fatima team in contrast boasted players with a couple seasons already under their belts. Names such as Michael Ambard, Josh Dookie, Jonathan Ramdhanie, and Jesse Butts would eventually become significant parts of Fatima’s Premiership teams of the future, but on this day, they were about to teach their very green opponents a very harsh lesson. Skipper Ambard called correctly at the toss and chose to bat first, dispelling any faint hopes the ‘Compre’ boys were harbouring of a quick match. Ramdhanie opened the innings together with the wicketkeeper Charles and the score had progressed to 18 in the 4^th over when a good piece of fielding saw Charles run out for 3. In strode the Fatima captain with the look of a man intent on causing serious mayhem. In the stories told years after the game, the folklore of Mucurapo would change his name from Michael Ambard to Michael the Merciless, for on this day, mercy was not in his nature.

By the 10^th over the score had blossomed to 71, with Ambard hitting the ground running and counting 3 boundaries in his first 10 scoring shots. At the end of the 20^th over Fatima had more than doubled their score to reach 157 and when the Ambard-Ramdhanie partnership was finally broken in over number 25, the score stood at 210. Their 2^nd wicket effort yielded 192 runs, out of which Ambard had accounted for 94 while Ramdhanie, in that cool, calm, unruffled style that would become one of his trademarks, made a patient 42 with a solitary boundary, focusing more on rotating the strike to allow his captain more opportunities to punish the ‘Compre’ bowlers. With 10 overs remaining for the Fatima batsmen, Ambard threw his innings into overdrive, completely dominating every partnership thereafter. The last 5 overs of the innings would perfectly sum up his batting, as Mucurapo took Fatima’s 5^th wicket with the first ball of over number 31, bringing in Jesse Butts to join his captain with the team score on 271 and Ambard on 122. The next 29 deliveries would be plundered for 74 runs, of which Butts contributed TWO, extras were 26 and Ambard racked up 46 to his score. Michael the Merciless would finish on 168 not out with 21 beautiful boundaries and 5 sixes, one of which ended up inside the East Mucurapo compound! His knock took his team to a mammoth 345-5 off 35 overs and they never looked back.

The Fatima bowling unit, showing just as much ruthlessness as their captain’s bat, quickly skittled out their opponents for just 34, with Josh Dookie grabbing 6 wickets and Jesse Butts, 3. It was a day of hard lessons and harsh realities for the Mucurapo boys, but in the end, it would serve them well as many of them went on to represent their school in the PowerGen SSCL Championship division in a couple years’ time. For Fatima’s captain, Ambard, it was just the latest installment in what would become a truly remarkable and successful cricketing career for both Fatima and the North Zone.