Vin­ode Mam­chan

T&T Red Force on the back of a sol­id 82 from Im­ran Khan and an un­beat­en 49 from Nars­ingh De­onar­ine took a 39-run lead on first in­nings against the Lee­wards Hur­ri­canes at the close of play on the sec­ond day of the PCL Four-day clash at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main Cou­va yes­ter­day.

Re­ply­ing to the Lee­wards first in­nings score of 225 all out, the T&T Red Force closed the day on 264 for six, with De­onar­ine lead­ing a fight­back af­ter Rakheen Corn­wall grabbed three quick wick­ets to re­duce the home team to 217 for six.De­onar­ine had built on the ear­li­er good work of all rounder Im­ran Khan who scored his first half cen­tu­ry for the Red Force in two years.

T&T start­ed on the bed­time po­si­tion of sev­en with­out loss and Khan made sure the lo­cals took con­trol by at­tack­ing the pac­ers ear­ly on. He was se­vere on Garvin Tonge and sent him to the bound­ary reg­u­lar­ly. Hope proved the per­fect foil at the oth­er end and to­geth­er they post­ed a sol­id 87 for the first wick­et.

Hope who has been very steady at the top of the or­der this sea­son for the Red Force was the first to go, fol­low­ing an outswinger from Or­lan­do Pe­ters in­to the hands of wick­et­keep­er Jahmah Hamil­ton. His 26 oc­cu­pied 112 min­utes in which time he faced 73 balls and struck four fours.Khan con­tin­ued to bat well and set­tled in nice­ly bring­ing up his half cen­tu­ry in part­ner­ship with Evin Lewis. The two took the score to 94 for one at lunch.

On the re­sump­tion they added an­oth­er 49 runs be­fore Lewis was giv­en out leg be­fore to Tonge for 22. The left han­der stood his ground for a while be­fore de­ject­ed­ly trudg­ing off, vis­i­bly up­set with um­pire Nand­ku­mar Shiv­sankar.

Khan fol­lowed his part­ner al­so up­set at a leg be­fore de­ci­sion by um­pire Shiv­sankar for 82. He bat­ted for 214 min­utes, faced 146 balls and struck 12 fours. The for­mer West In­dies Un­der-19 bats­man Yan­nic Car­ri­ah was then joined by the Guyanese De­onar­ine with the score at 158 for three.

The two stead­ied the in­nings at that point but just as T&T was get­ting in­to a dom­i­nant po­si­tion at 199 for three, 'Jim­bo' struck with three quick wick­ets. The burly Corn­wall twirling his off-spin­ners sent back Yan­nic Car­ri­ah (30), skip­per Ja­son Mo­hammed (4) and Yan­nick Ot­t­ley (1) in the space of 18 runs.

SCORE­BOARD

T&T Red Force vs Lee­wards Hur­ri­canes

Lee­wards 1st inns 225 all out

T&T Red Force (7/0)

T&T Red Force inns

K Hope c Hamil­ton b Pe­ters 26

I Khan lbw Tonge 82

E Lewis lbw Tonge 22

Y Car­ri­ah c Hodge b Corn­wall 30

N De­onar­ine not out 49

J Mo­hammed c Bolan b Corn­wall 4

Y Ot­t­ley lbw Corn­wall 1

S Kat­wa­roo not out 18

Ex­tras 19b, 4lb, 5w, 4nb 32

To­tal for six wk­ts 264

Fall of wk­ts: 87, 143, 158, 199, 209, 217.

Bowl­ing: G Tonge 14-2-56-2, A Joseph 12-1-50-0, J Louis 8-2-28-0, O Pe­ters 9-1-21-1, R Corn­wall 28-10-46-3, D Cruick­shank 9-1-8-0, J Tay­lor 11-1-32-0.