Vin­ode Mam­chan

Skip­per De­nesh Ramdin led from the front with an un­beat­en 75, as T&T fin­ished the first day of their third round re­gion­al four-day clash against Guyana at the Oval on a com­fort­able 269 for five.

When Ramdin came to the crease his side was stut­ter­ing on 115 for four and when play was called he walked off with all-rounder Im­ran Khan with the score read­ing 269 for five–tes­ta­ment of his good work.

He bat­ted with great poise and mar­shalled the mid­dle or­der well to re­main un­beat­en on 75 in 216 min­utes of bat­ting. He faced a to­tal of 172 balls and struck 13 fours. Khan al­so bat­ted well and fin­ished on 41 not out in 127 min­utes, fac­ing 108 balls and strik­ing four fours.

The duo end­ed a good day for T&T af­ter open­er Lendl Sim­mons and mid­dle or­der bats­man Dar­ren Bra­vo carved half-cen­turies.

Ear­li­er, when play was called, in front of a crowd of about 200 fans, Guyana asked T&T to take first strike on a good bat­ting strip. Sim­mons, fresh from two good knocks for the West In­dies against Zim­bab­we, and Adri­an Barath, who record­ed two half-cen­turies against the Lee­wards, got to work and looked un­fussed dur­ing their as­so­ci­a­tion of 23 runs.

How­ev­er, as the say­ing goes, when you are bored you look for trou­ble and that is ex­act­ly what hap­pened to Barath. Noth­ing the Guyanese sent down to him looked as if it would have got­ten him out, so he de­cid­ed to out him­self. He played an in­ju­di­cious shot to part-timer As­sad Fu­dadin and was caught by Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul for 12.

Sim­mons con­tin­ued in the same vein as he did in the T20s against Zim­bab­we and played some au­da­cious shots that were met with great ap­pre­ci­a­tion from the crowd.

He bat­ted at­trac­tive­ly but al­ways with cau­tion and in the end, when a hun­dred looked his, he gave it away at 51, caught by Shiv Chan­der­paul off skip­per Veerasam­my Per­maul. His in­nings came from just 67 balls and was spiced with nine fours.

The el­e­gant Dar­ren Bra­vo took over and the dri­ve was his hon­ey pot. Time and time again he sweet­ly drilled the ball through the well-pop­u­lat­ed cov­er field and looked in prime form. Af­ter the fall of Sim­mons, Dar­ren's el­der broth­er Dwayne came in and left just be­fore lunch for a 'duck' and at the break the score read 105 for three.

With calls for his in­clu­sion in the West In­dies Test team, Ke­iron Pol­lard was pre­sent­ed with the per­fect sit­u­a­tion to ad­dress the se­lec­tors. He, how­ev­er, failed to con­nect with them as he went back for six. At that point T&T was 115 for four.

Ap­pli­ca­tion was re­quired at that point and skip­per De­nesh Ramdin was the man com­ing in with that mes­sage. He and Bra­vo showed great care with their bat­ting and played each ball on mer­it. Slow­ly, they inched the score along un­til Bra­vo was bril­liant­ly caught by Sar­wan off De­onar­ine at first slip to end his hand at 66.

In all he faced 136 balls, send­ing six rolling over the ropes and two over it for six­es.

At 182 for five more of the same ap­pli­ca­tion was need­ed and Ramdin was pre­pared to do just that. He found a per­fect foil in all-rounder Im­ran Khan and they added an un­bro­ken 87 runs for the sixth wick­et, giv­ing T&T a great chance of get­ting past the 300-run mark to­day.

When the Guyana team was an­nounced yes­ter­day morn­ing, Shiv Chan­der­paul and his son Tag­nar­ine were named in the fi­nal XI and it rep­re­sent­ed on­ly the sec­ond time that a fa­ther and son com­bi­na­tion was play­ing a re­gion­al first class match to­geth­er.

The first in­stance of this hap­pen­ing was way back in 1922 when the T&T fa­ther/son com­bi­na­tion of Le­brun Con­stan­tine and Learie Con­stan­tine rep­re­sent­ed this coun­try in the fi­nals of the in­ter­colo­nial tour­na­ment against Bar­ba­dos at the Bour­da Oval in George­town, Guyana.

Play on the sec­ond day to­day be­gins at 10 am.

SCORE­BOARD

TT vs Guyana

TT inns

A Barath c S Chan­der­paul b Fu­dadin 12

L Sim­mons c S Chan­der­paul b Per­maul 51

DM Bra­vo c Sar­wan b Nars­ingh 66

DJ Bra­vo c Sar­wan b Per­maul 0

K Pol­lard Beat­on b Per­maul 6

D Ramdin not out 75

I Khan not out 41

Ex­tras b9, lb2, w5, nb2 18

To­tal 5 wk­ts 269

Fall of wk­ts: 23, 91, 103, 115, 182.

Bowl­ing: R Beat­on 17-6-43-0 (nb1), P Wintz 11-5-30-0 (w3), A Fu­dadin 6-3-21-1 (w2), V Per­maul 22-9-58-3, D Bishoo 21-6-54-0 (1nb), N De­onar­ine 11-3-39-1, R Sar­wan 1-0-12-0, S Chan­der­paul 1-0-1-0.

Oth­er scores

At 3W's Oval:

Com­bined Cam­pus­es & Col­leges vs Lee­ward Is­lands

CCC 180 all out (Ray­mon Reifer 45, Sha­caya Thomas 35; Lar­ry Joseph 3-32, Gavin Tonge 3-55, An­tho­ny Mar­tin 2-36) vs LEE­WARDS 62 for three (Kier­an Pow­ell 28). Lee­wards trail CCC by 118 runs.

At Na­tion­al Sta­di­um:

Ja­maica vs Wind­ward Is­lands

JA­MAICA 207 (Niki­ta Miller 55, Dave Bernard 52) vs WIND­WARDS 41 with­out loss (John­son Charles 23 not out). Wind­wards trail by 166 runs

Gallery:http://www.guardian.co.tt/gallery/tt-vs-guyana