By Darshan Chickery
Dynasty comfortably beat Richmond Hill by three wickets to take to West Indian Softball Association’s 2010 25 Over Premier Elite division Championship last Sunday a Dr. Charles Drew Park.
After a brief address by WISA’s president – Rabin Sharma, the game got started just before 2 o’clock. Richmond Hill won the toss and decided to bat first. Rishie Udai and Vicky Dhanraj opened the batting. Udai was the first to go with the inning’s third delivery. He was given out caught at short mid on. He stood his ground briefly in dismay at the umpire’s decision. It was a questionable one that generated lots of conversation after the game. The score was two for 1.
Imran Wahab joined Dhanraj at the wicket and repaired the damage with a 43 run partnership before Wahab was bowled by Gobin Narine for 15. He occupied the crease for exactly 10.1 overs. Pooran Balkissoon joined Dhanraj and together they took the score to 58 for 2 at the break.
With tons of wickets in hand, Richmond Hill was poised to accelerate the run rate considerably but failed to do so. At the end of the 21st over, they were 95 for 4. With just four overs to go, they tried desperately to post a challenging score. In doing so, they lost wickets rapidly and was bowled out for 136 in 24.1 overs. Dhanraj top scored with 42.
Dynasty’s Gobin Narine was the most successful bowler with 5 for 41 from five overs. His haul included a hat-trick which came in the 24th over. He was supported by Vish Persaud with 4 for 19. Persaud grabbed two of his four wickets in the 23rd over.
Dynasty made light work of the Richmond Hill bowling attack and in the process knocked runs with 140 for 7 in 19 overs. Even though Dynasty’s victory was a comfortable three wickets win with 6 overs to spare, they did suffer a palpitating moment in the 15th and 16th overs. They lost the wickets of Vicky Subkaran to Rishie Udai for 18 in the 15th over with the score at 101, and Prasana Malipal (0) and Khemraj Narine (Buns) (0) in the 16th over to Joe Persaud. Dynasty was briefly in trouble at 103 for 6.
Needing another 34 runs to win, Ricky Narine batted very sensibly for a match winning 32 not out. He was very well supported by opener – Majid Khan who made 41 with six fours. The main wickets takers for Richmond Hill were Joe Persaud with 2 for 30 and Rishie Udai with 2 for 25.