Guyana flatten Leewards to clinch women’s T20 Championship

Another four-wicket haul from Trisha Hardat and some runs upfront off the bat of Naomi Barkoye led Guyana’s Under-19 Women to a tournament win in the Cricket West Indies (CWI) Rising Stars T20 Championships on Saturday morning.
Rain delayed the start at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad and Tobago, but once the heavens cleared, Leeward Islands won the toss and opted to bat first.
Leewards’ top three of Megna Baishya, Katherine Bean Rosarion and Sainvani Kambalapalli were quickly sent back to the dugout for 3, 1 and 1 respectively. In fact, similarly to their preliminary game in which they faced Guyana, the only batter to stand up for Leewards was Captain Jahzara Claxton.
Claxton hit 25 in 28 deliveries before becoming Hardat’s second victim of the day. The second highest score of 7 from 12 balls later came off the bat of Courtney Browne. What propelled Leewards was the 22 extras that the Guyanese bowling outfit gave away.

Nonetheless, Guyana were able to restrict their opponents to 68 all out in 19.4 overs.
Hardat claimed 4-10 from 4 overs, while Danellie Manns picked up 2-14 from her 4.
Despite a stumble from her fellow opener Laurene Williams, Barkoye gave Guyana a great start to the chase and alongside Shonette Belgrave, got their team within 15 runs of the target.
The 45-run second-wicket partnership saw Barkoye hitting a run-a-ball 24, while Belgrave slammed 21 in 15 deliveries. Latoya Williams later added 8 from 10 balls, but when a pair of ducks threatened to destabilise the Guyanese, the heavens opened once again.
The lengthy rain delay forced the game to be decided by the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, and with 63-5 on the board in 11.3 overs, Guyana were well ahead of the par score and thus won the match.
Amara Richards and Kambalapalli each picked up two wickets for Leewards.
Guyana won five out of six games in the championships and ended the preliminary aspect of the tournament with 22.8 points, 6.4 points ahead of the second-place team.