All to play for in final round

Jaguars Franchise League

Lower Corentyne on course for inaugural championship

The inaugural Guyana Cricket Board/ Cricket Guyana Inc. (GCB/CGI) Jaguars 3-Day League, reaches the final round today with four more matches at various venues.
The seventh and final round in the semi-professional league will see table leaders Lower Corentyne hosting West Berbice at the Port Mourant Community Centre ground. With 95.3 points and a good showing over six rounds, Lower Corentyne should be crowned inaugural champions since West Demerara who are in second place is on 76.8 points some 18.5 points behind and will need maximum points in all departments and an extremely poor game from Lower Corentyne to go ahead.

West Berbice have lost four of their fixtures and are yet to register a victory which makes the prospect for an upset at Port Mourant more improbable. West Berbice are in seventh place on 32.5 and will need to play well to stay above Upper Demerara/East Bank on 28.5 points.
With one defeat, second place West Demerara will host Essequibo who occupies the fifth spot with 41.6 points at Tuschen ground where another high scoring drama could unfold. In the previous round, West Demerara and Lower Corentyne played to a high scoring draw and with the likes of Akshaya Persaud, Tagenarine and Shivnarine Chanderpaul in this game more runs could be high on the agenda.                                                 East Coast Demerara has been consistent without being exceptional and are occupying the third spot with 68.5 points. Today they host bottom of the table Upper Demerara/ East Bank at the Enterprise Community Centre ground and should add to their tally against their struggling opponents.  The final match of the round pits together Georgetown and Upper Corentyne at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ground Bourda. Georgetown are in a disappointing sixth place on 40.9 points while Upper Corentyne have been steady in accumulating 51.2 points and a keen tussle is in the making. The weather is favourable and a full game is expected at the former international venue where previous matches were severely affected by rain. Matches today begin at 09:30h at all venues.
Meanwhile, after a splendid double century in round six, Chanderpaul Hemraj of the East Coast Demerara is the leading run scorer in the league with 542 runs while Jonathan Foo (Lower Corentyne) is second on 538. Tagenarine Chanderpaul (West Demerara) is third with 511 runs followed by teenager Bhaskar Yadram (East Coast Demerara). Georgetown’s captain Christopher Barnwell with 406 runs occupies the fifth spot.In the bowling department, Eon Hooper of Upper Corentyne has 34 scalps followed by Gajanan Sukhnanan (Georgetown) with 30 and Kassim Khan (Lower Corentyne) with 29.
West Demerara new ball partners Romario Shepherd with 26 wickets and Raymon Reifer, 25 victims round off the top five bowlers.