West Indies Championship: Alimohamed, Nandu, Perez put Harpy Eagles back in the game
Another five-wicket haul from Ronaldo Alimohamed and an impressive after-lunch session from the Guyana Harpy Eagles (GHE) pacers pulled the visitors out of hot water at Warner Park, St Kitts and Nevis on Thursday afternoon.
Matthew Nandu brought up another First-Class half-century
The Harpy Eagles batters then made efforts to seize control of the contest, cutting down the Leeward Islands deficit in no time.
The Leeward Islands Hurricanes resumed Day Two of the sixth-round West Indies Championship clash on 143-4, piling on 137 runs in the first session, without losing a wicket.
Both Keacy Carty and Jahmar Hamilton slammed half-centuries as the runs flowed freely, getting Leewards to 280-4 at lunch.
Ronaldo Alimohamed added another five-for to his tally
However, the Harpy Eagles rebounded after the lunch break, reintroducing a full-on pace attack, as the spinners were taken to the cleaners prior to the break.
After a treble of fours, Nial Smith struck just four overs after the lunch break; resulting in Carty missing out on his century. Improving on his overnight score of 20, Carty hit 92 off 182 balls, laced with 12 boundaries. On the other hand, Hamilton hit 80 off 124 balls but similarly fell short of the bigger milestone in the subsequent over to Alimohamed’s bowling.
Rahkeem Cornwall was the only other batter to eke out some runs against the Guyanese pace, pitching in 26 to his team’s eventual score of 335 all out in 79.3 overs. Impressively, it only took the Harpy Eagles 13 overs after lunch to gather up the remaining Leeward wickets.
Alimohamed claimed 5-91 from 19.3 overs while Smith picked up 3-62 from 15 overs and Keemo Paul 2-61 from 18.
As such, the Hurricanes had a 142-run lead after the first innings.
Raymond Perez missed his half-century by one
The Harpy Eagles, this time around, had little trouble accumulating the runs and came within five runs of the total set by the Hurricanes by the close of play.
Raymond Perez was quick out of the blocks while Matthew Nandu had no trouble playing the patient hand. Eventually, their 78-run first-wicket partnership came to an end when Perez tried to hit consecutive sixes off Cornwall, but came up short, caught on the boundary by Mikyle Louis.
Perez, agonisingly, fell for 49 off just 73 balls. Kevlon Anderson came out to the crease and combined with Nandu to take the Harpy Eagles safely to the end of the day’s play.
Nandu managed to bring up his 50 – off 122 deliveries – before the day was called, ending the day unbeaten with 53 from 127 balls.
At the other end, Anderson is poised to resume Day 3 on 31 off 55 balls as the Harpy Eagles were 137-1 in 42 overs.
The West Indies Championship action will continue at 10:00h today.
