Barnwell blasts 94* from 48 balls in Trinidad

Pow­er­gen Sports Club won the pre­mier­ship di­vi­sion of the T&T Crick­et Board’s (TTCB) Na­tion­al League two-day com­pe­ti­tion de­spite falling to a nar­row de­feat against sec­ond-placed Ale­scon Comets at Pierre Road on Sun­day.

The vic­to­ry was im­por­tant for Comets to se­cure the sec­ond spot af­ter Queen’s Park Crick­et Club beat Mer­ry Boys at the Queen’s Park Oval.

Comets start­ed the day shaky on 84 for five, re­spond­ing to Powergen’s first in­nings score of 198. They on­ly added 20 runs on the sec­ond morn­ing be­fore be­ing bowled out for 104. It gave Powergen a 94-run lead. Its sec­ond in­nings was led by Jeron Mani­ram’s 43 while Stephen Kat­wa­roo hit 33.

Pow­er­gen was bowled out for 156 runs, set­ting Comets a tar­get of 251 runs for vic­to­ry. At the top of the or­der, cap­tain Rayad Em­rit led the chase with 62 runs from 45 balls. When he was out, Christo­pher Barn­well took over re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

The Guyanese was bru­tal in his ap­proach, hit­ting 94 runs from just 48 balls. His knock in­clud­ed 10 six­es. The match came down close, but Barn­well end­ed un­beat­en to lead his side to a five-wick­et vic­to­ry.

Pow­er­gen cap­tain Ja­son Mo­hammed was hap­py with the league suc­cess but dis­ap­point­ed with the de­feat.

He told Guardian Me­dia Sports, “We are a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed to lose the game af­ter hold­ing such a big first in­nings lead. It’s not the ide­al fin­ish. Barn­well was good on the day al­though he had a cou­ple of chances. How­ev­er, I think we have good mo­men­tum head­ing in­to the T20s now.”

In Bar­rack­pore, Vic­to­ria Sports avoid­ed rel­e­ga­tion with a 95-run vic­to­ry over Cen­tral Sports.

The lat­ter re­sumed its first in­nings on 130 for sev­en, re­ply­ing to Vic­to­ria’s 222. Cen­tral was bowled out for 157, hand­ing Vic­to­ria a first in­nings lead of 65 runs. They went on to score 162 for eight be­fore de­clar­ing in the sec­ond in­nings and set­ting Cen­tral Sports a tar­get of 228 runs for vic­to­ry.

Af­ter scor­ing a quick fire 46, Vikash Ram­per­sad led the demise of Cen­tral Sports with fig­ures of four for 51. He helped bowl out his op­po­nents for 132. Kjorn Ot­t­ley’s 43 was the top score for his side in the sec­ond in­nings.

At the Oval, QPCC saw off Mer­ry Boys quite eas­i­ly. Hav­ing dis­missed the vis­i­tors for 146 runs on an open­ing day, QPCC re­sumed its first in­nings on 201 for four with Isa­iah Ra­jah un­beat­en on 85.

He fell two runs short of a cen­tu­ry while the hosts had sol­id con­tri­bu­tions from Yan­nic Cari­ah and Nicholas Alex­is, both of whom made 45.

Alex­is end­ed un­beat­en. QPCC de­clared its in­nings on 338 for eight, tak­ing a mas­sive lead of 192 runs in­to the sec­ond in­nings. Mer­ry Boys rolled over for just 168 runs. Pac­er An­der­son Phillip led his side’s de­struc­tion with five wick­ets for 49 runs.

Amir Jan­goo had a sol­id start be­fore be­ing run out for 37. At one-point, Mer­ry Boys was 85 for five. They even­tu­al­ly slid to a crush­ing de­feat.

In El So­cor­ro, First Cit­i­zens Clarke Road beat El So­cor­ro Youth Move­ment (EYM) by an in­nings and 25 runs. Af­ter bowl­ing out EYM for 111 on the first day, Clarke Road re­sumed its first in­nings on 311 for five.

Clevon Kalawan added on­ly three to his overnight score of 53. The vis­i­tors were bowled out for 339 runs, tak­ing a lead of 228 runs in­to the sec­ond in­nings.

Ak­il Tim­o­thy fin­ished with five wick­ets for 99 runs. In re­sponse, EYM was bowled out for 203 runs in its sec­ond in­nings. Ker­wyn Sir­ju led the de­struc­tion for Clarke Road with five wick­ets for 58 runs. Richard Ali’s fight­ing 55 was in vain as was Tim­o­thy’s 47.

With the two-day tour­na­ment now over, play­ers switch their fo­cus to the T20 com­pe­ti­tion be­gin­ning on Wednes­day. (Trinidad & Tobago Guardian)