Sushil Nadkarni blast his way to 101 not out against Cayman Islands. (Photo by Shiek Mohamed)
Canada defeated the host Bermuda by 4 wickets to finish with a perfect 5-0 record but the thrill of the final day belonged to Argentina and Bahamas who played to a tie with the teams scoring a massive 666 runs.
At Southampton Oval the USA defeated Cayman Islands by 10 wickets to win the silver medal. Cayman won the toss and elected to bat but never was allowed to establish much of a target as all the USA bowlers kept the pressure on with Mohammed Ghous 3/21 ending with the best figures as Cayman crumbled to a modest total of 129 in 32 overs.
The USA openers Nadkarni and Wright took care of business with an undefeated opening partnership of 130 runs in just 13.5 overs. Sushil Nadkarni did the impossible by scoring a 101 not out. The win secured second place for the Americans whose only loss was to the champions Canada.
Canada vs Bermuda
Canada won the toss and elected to field, the Bermudian batsmen started cautiously while the Canadian opening bowers of Hooper and Chohan took advantage of the early morning moisture in the wicket.
With the total on 31, Crockwell on 12 runs failed to keep down a rising delivery from the left arm seamer Bhatti in only his first over and gave an easy catch to Cheema at gully.
The Bermudian batsmen found Bhatti difficult to play as he swung the ball back into the right hander?s and from around the wicket to the left hander’s across their body.
Captain Hemp came to the wicket at the fall of Outerbridge for 5 bowled by Bhatti with the total of 51 and started a rebuilding partnership with veteran Irvine Romaine. The partnership yielded 64 runs with Hemp scoring 48 from 73 balls and Romaine 32 from 37 balls.
The Bermuda score went from a promising position of 114 for 2 in 30 and soon became 116 for 5 with captain Hemp watching from the non strikers end.
Three more wickets to the run out route and the home team gave away the initiative and ended with 181 runs from 48. 5 overs.
Canada played the best cricket over the week and a total of 181 runs were never going to be enough for the tournament leaders and the highest Ranked team in the region.
Captain Rizwan Cheema started the innings with his trade mark lofted drive to the long off boundary; another exquisite drive through the covers brought 10 runs from the first over in the run chase.
However Kevin Tucker had Cheema caught at mid-off attempting a drive down the ground to a ball pitch back on a good length, and he found the fielder on the edge on the circle.
This brought Hiral Patel to join Bastiampillai, and the pair put on 48 runs for the 2nd wicket, before Patel fell to Tucker for 19 runs.
At the other end Bastiampillai missed aggression with guile in manoeuvring the ball in the out filed to keep the score board ticking over, he was finally caught out by Tucker off of the bowling of Jim West for a well played 66 runs with seven 4?s in 106 balls.
The Bermuda toiled hard but the total was 30 runs short and the experienced Dhaniram finished the game with cover drive for one of his five 4?s and ended on 31 not out to give the Canadians the ICC Americas Division 1 Championship and a clean sweep in the tournament.