Vin­ode Mam­chan

If you are a Guyanese crick­et fan, well by now if you are still alive you know that your heart is in good work­ing or­der. The men from South Amer­i­ca had yet an­oth­er nerve wreck­ing win on Sat­ur­day night against the Wind­wards at Beause­jour Crick­et Sta­di­um that put them through to the se­mi-fi­nal play off against Ja­maica last night.

Chas­ing what for them should have been a rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple vic­to­ry tar­get off 188 runs, the Guyanese af­ter a good start some­how got it down to the last over need­ing 12 runs for vic­to­ry.

With 9,000 fans cheer­ing on home­boy John­son Charles, things did not look good for the vis­i­tors but Charles in on­ly his sec­ond over of the tour­na­ment, would hand the Guyanese a gift.

He beat Roys­ton Cran­don with the first de­liv­ery that sent the equa­tion to 12 need­ed off five balls. Af­ter this he sent down two wides which gave Guyana a glim­mer of hope. The hard hit­ting Cran­don would then lift the oth­er de­liv­ery over long on for six and all of a sud­den it was four need­ed off four balls. Charles some­how man­aged to take it down to the last ball, with Guyana need­ing one and just as he had done against the CCC in the first match of the tour­na­ment, skip­per Veerasam­my Per­maul was able to scam­per a leg bye much to the dis­ap­point­ment of the fans in Beause­jour.

Ear­li­er, Guyana were off to a good start, reach­ing 23 with­out loss af­ter three overs, with Der­wain Chris­t­ian hit­ting three bound­aries off the third over sent down by Sam­my.

Over­all, the right-han­der faced 41 balls and struck five fours in top­scor­ing with 39, dom­i­nat­ing the open­ing stand with vet­er­an left-han­der Shiv Chan­der­paul, who scored eight be­fore re­tir­ing hurt in the eighth over at 39 with­out loss.

Ramnaresh Sar­wan en­tered the fray but ap­peared out of sorts, and the next three overs yield­ed just ten runs as pres­sure be­gun to build on Guyana.

Des­per­ate to break the shack­les, the right-han­der pulled left-arm spin­ner Garey Math­urin (2-20) to Lesporis at deep mid-wick­et to end his 15-ball knock for sev­en, at 54 for one in the 12th over.

Guyana then wob­bled as the Wind­wards scent­ed an open­ing, los­ing Chris­t­ian and Nars­ingh De­onar­ine (3) in the space of 12 de­liv­er­ies with just nine runs added.

Leon John­son stead­ied the nerves some­what, scor­ing 23 from 14 balls with one four and a six as he helped to post an in­valu­able 38 off 23 balls for the fourth wick­et with Chris Barn­well who made 17.

No such dra­ma seemed like­ly when the Wind­wards stut­tered to a dis­ap­point­ing 117 for sev­en, af­ter they were sent in.

Ked­dy Lesporis top scored with 26 off 21 balls while cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my (18) and An­dre Fletch­er (16) got starts but failed to cap­i­talise.

They were un­done by the ex­cel­lent Ja­cobs who cap­tured two for 12 with his un­com­pli­cat­ed off-spin while fast bowler Rons­ford Beat­on (2-25) and West In­dies leg-spin­ner De­ven­dra Bishoo (2-26) sup­port­ed with two wick­ets apiece.

They found them­selves in ear­ly trou­ble, los­ing two wick­ets with just two runs on the board af­ter both open­ers Charles and Miles Bas­combe fell to Ja­cobs with­out scor­ing.

Score­board

WIND­WARDS

J Charles c & b Ja­cobs 0

M Bas­combe c Beat­on b Ja­cobs 0

A Fletch­er c Ja­cobs b Beat­on 16

D Smith b Bishoo 10

K Lesporis run out 26

D Sam­my c Ja­cobs b Beat­on 18

+L James b Bishoo 0

L Se­bastien not out 15

S Shilling­ford not out 7

Ex­tras (lb5, w9, nb1) 15

TO­TAL (7 wk­ts, 20 overs) 117

Did not bat: D John­son, G Math­urin.

Fall of wick­ets: 1-0 (Charles, 1 over), 2-2 (Bas­combe, 2.4), 3-27 (Smith, 8), 4-46 (Fletch­er, 10.2), 5-83 (Lesporis, 15.2), 6-84 (James, 15.4), 7-84 (Sam­my, 16.1)

Bowl­ing: Ja­cobs 4-1-12-2 (w1), Barn­well 4-0-24-0 (w2), Cran­don 2-0-14-0 (w1), Bishoo 4-0-26-2, Per­maul 2-0-11-0 (w3), Beat­on 4-0-25-2 (w2, nb1)

GUYANA

+D Chris­t­ian run out 39

S Chan­der­paul ret. hurt 8

R Sar­wan c Lesporis b Math­urin 7

N De­onar­ine c Charles b Math­urin 3

C Barn­well c Lesporis b John­son 17

L John­son c & b Sam­my 23

R Cran­don c Se­bastien b Charles 11

S Ja­cobs not out 3

V Per­maul not out 0

Ex­tras ((lb2, w5) 7

TO­TAL (6 wk­ts, 20 overs) 118

Fall of wick­ets: 1-54 (Sar­wan, 11.5 overs), 2-59 (Chris­t­ian, 12.5), 3-63 (De­onar­ine, 13.5), 4-101 (John­son, 17.4), 5-103 (Barn­well, 18.3), 6-116 (Cran­don, 19.4)

Bowl­ing: Sam­my 4-0-23-1, Math­urin 4-0-20-2 (w1), Shilling­ford 4-0-19-0, John­son 4-0-24-1, Se­bastien 3-0-19-0, Charles 1-0-11-1 (w2)

Re­sult: Guyana won by four wick­ets.

Points: Guyana 4, Wind­wards 0.

Star-of-the-Match: Steven Ja­cobs.

Toss: Guyana.?