Veerasammy Permaul produced yet another sensational spell of classical left-arm spin bowling to wreck Jamaica Scorpions batting on Friday and placed Guyana Jaguars in the ascendency at stumps on day two of their opening round match of the Cricket West Indies (CWI) 2017/2018 Digicel 4-Day championship at the National Stadium, Providence.
Man of the moment! Veerasammy Permaul leads the team off after splendid spell of bowling. (John Ramsingh photo)
On a day blessed with brilliant sunshine, a total of 16 wickets fell with Permaul once again as the chief destroyer with 6 for 29. His feat was responsible for Scorpions horrendously sliding from 74 for 4 to 99 all out in 48.5 overs.
It essentially gave the three-time defending champions an initial lead of 167 which they carried to 273 after reaching stumps 106-4 with captain Leon Johnson on 11 and Bhaskar Yadram yet to score.
Unlike the first innings, the duo of Tagenarine Chanderpaul and Rajendra Chandrika batted with more urgency, picking the gaps and easily disposing of any lose deliveries to post 55 for the first wicket.
Chandrika once again looked in total control of his innings from the onset, hitting some fluent drives, one of which was a crunching cover-drive off the bowling of seamer Derval Green which brought loud cheers from the sprinkling of spectators present.
Permaul was at his best yet again with the ball for Guyana Jaguars
The left-arm wrist-spin of Dennis Bulli was once again a handful, he got Chandrika edging behind after stroking five fours and one six. Chanderpaul soon followed when he played across the line to full deliver from spinner Fabian Allen.
The visitors began sensing they could give the Jaguars a taste of their medicine with the ball since Damani Sewell removed Chandrapaul Hemraj for the second time in the match for a run-a ball 17 and then Gudakesh Motie, who was sent in as night watchman, soon followed after pulling two short balls to the ropes.
Tagenarine Chanderpaul looked fluent in his innings of 33
Yadram who was tormented by Bulli during his scoreless first innings stint was up against Bulli in the penultimate over and kept the spinner at bay.
Earlier, the Jaguars resumed from their overnight score of 258 for eight and only added eight runs before the Scorpions seamers cleaned up the tail.
However, it would seem the Scorpions’ batsmen relished the thought of fielding more since they hardly spent any time in the middle aside from Guyanese Assad Fudadin and captain Paul Palmer Jr. who shared a 57-run partnership for the fourth wicket.
Seamer Romario Shepherd was on target immediately as he removed debutant Gareth Gravey with the fourth ball of the innings for a first ball duck. Keemo Paul who shared the new ball with Shepherd, kept a consistent line and length which brought him favour with the cheap dismissals of Trevon Griffith and Brandon King, leaving Scorpions 19 for 3.
It could have been worse had glove-man Anthony Bramble held on to a difficult chance off Fudadin off the fired up Shepherd while on two but himself and Paul buckled down to take lunch at 37 for 3.
The second session was simply the ‘Permaul show’ as he exposed the inexperience of the tourist’s feeble batting unit on his way to a remarkable feat of 400 First-Class wickets in his 94th match (it was his 22nd five wicket haul).
He bowled with great tenacity, ripping through the middle-order leaving the Scorpions 18 runs from the follow-on target of 117.
Permaul had the prized wicket of fellow Berbician Fudadin with a delivery which gripped and turned crashing into his pads. The resistance of Palmer was brought to an end with a simple catch at short-leg after Permaul got one to bounce.
With Jaguars in the driver’s seat, today’s action should be interesting when play resumes at 09:30h.
