BCB/Dave West Indian Imports Berbice River 40-over Tournament: Wiruni defeat Sand Hills-Friendship to emerge as champions

 The Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) is currently hosting a countywide Second-Division tournament with almost a hundred teams involved.
The tournament is divided into five sub-divisions where a champion would emerge and then the five champions would participate in a play-off to determine the overall Berbice champions.

On Friday last, Wiruni defeated arch-rivals Sand Hills-Friendship to emerge as the champions of the BCB/ Dave West Indian Imports Tournament for teams in the Berbice River area. Three teams – Wiruni, Sand Hills-Friendship and Ebini – participated in the tournament which is being sponsored by Dave Narine, a New York-based businessman who owns and operates the popular Dave West Indian Imports business.
Wiruni won the toss and elected to bat first in the match, which was attended by a large and noisy crowd of riverine residents. Wiruni scored 201 for 6 off their allotted overs, with Desmond Osborne top-scoring with 62 (four boundaries and four huge sixes) and he received support from J Sinclair, who scored 26. Bowling for Sand Hills-Friendship, Kelvin Evans claimed 4 for 19 in an impressive spell. Colin Welcome supported Evans with two wickets for nine runs.
In reply, Sand Hills-Friendship were bowled out for 89 runs in 20 overs to lose by 112 runs. Randy DeNobreya top-scored with a polished 49, but he received no support in a poor team batting exhibition. N Thomas took four wickets for 36 runs while G McKenzie took three wickets for six runs for Wiruni. Osborne was declared the Man of the Finals for his innings of 62.

BCB President Hilbert Foster congratulated Wiruni on winning the tournament. He explained that similar finals would be played in the West Berbice, New Amsterdam-Canje, Lower Corentyne and Upper Corentyne areas. He noted that his administration was committed to development of the game. The BCB President also announced to loud applause that history would be created when a First-Division team from the Berbice River area play in the BCB/Speaker’s Cup 20/20 tournament. This will be the first time that a Berbice River team would be playing at the First-Division level in the history of Berbice cricket. They will join West Berbice, Blairmont, Police, Tucber Park, Young Warriors, Rose Hall Canje, Albion, Port Mourant, RHT Thunderbolt Flour, Upper Corentyne and Skeldon. Chairman of the BCB Cricket Competition Committee, Leslie Solomon stated that he was impressed with the standard of the two teams and urged them to continue working on their game. Solomon also expressed gratitude to Narine for his sponsorship of the tournament.