Saturday, February 4 2012

PRISONS CAPTAIN Denzil James scored an unbeaten half-century on Thursday to guide his team to a five-wicket victory over UWI in the UWI T20 competition at the Sir Frank Worrell Grounds, St Augustine. James struck 64 from 47 balls as Prisons successfully chased down UWI’s total of 113 for six. Prisons finished on 117 for five with three overs to spare.

Batting first, UWI got contributions from opener Keshava Ramphal (33), Shaquille Allick (22), Earl Ottley (25) and Kavesh Kantasingh (17 not out) but were unable to really accelerate the scoring.

The Prisons bowlers were all disciplined in their effort to restrict the home team with Javed Boodram finishing with figures of two wickets for 30 runs.

Prisons started their run chase disastrously, losing opening batsman Valentino Beekhi for duck without a run on the scoreboard.

But James steadied the ship with a captain’s knock that brought them home. James batted through the innings, hitting five fours and two sixes. Narendra Bridgelal (20), Andre Mohammed (12) and Ricardo Sam (13) all chipped in to guide Prisons to victory.

Vashishth Maharaj (2/21) was the pick of the UWI bowlers. Meanwhile, Esmeralda shocked TTEC with a six-wicket defeat of their more illustrious opponents.

Needing an even six runs an over after restricting the “Electricty Boys” to 119 for seven, Esmeralda reached 120 for four off 18.1 overs. Opening batsman Anthony Bramble led the chase with 47 runs to put them on course for victory. Teshaun Castro added a valuable 37 to cement the win. Kwesi Blackburn (2/32) and Deepak Kumar (2/18) shared the wickets. Earlier, TTEC slumped to 17 for the loss of four wickets with Manoj Sirju (2), Azurdeen Mohammed (1), Satish Goolcharan (1) and Kumar (4) all back in the pavilion. Akeal Cooper (42) and Ryan Ramasray (31 not out) revived the innings somewhat to push them to a respectable total.

Castro was the main wicket-taker with two wickets for 11 runs.