Ramnarine Grabs 5-38 But North in Charge

Unless something dramatically goes wrong, North will celebrate as the 2003 Pizza Hut Gerry Gomez North/South cricket champions on Saturday.

Winners of the Cup back in 1998, North has been set a victory target of 111, after it humbled South for 92 in its second innings at the Queen's Park Oval yesterday. North closed on 17 for one, still short of 94 runs required for victory with two days to go, nine wickets in hand, one of which is West Indies star batsman Brian Lara.

With a wicket that seems to be deteriorating after each over and backed by some accurate bowling from right-handed medium pacers Ricardo Paty and Dwayne Bravo, South?s batsmen wasted an 18-run first innings lead as none of its batsmen with the exception of their captain Daren Ganga (22) Shazam Babwah (23) seemed capable of playing the bowlers.

Paty followed up his first innings tally of four 29, with four more for 16 runs from nine overs, while Bravo finished the match with five wickets, when he got three for 18 of nine overs.

North, having resumed at 94 for four, were bowled out for 158 in their first innings with Alescon Comets leg-spinner Dinanath Ramnarine being the only bowler to bag five wickets for 38 runs from 21 overs, eight of which were maidens. South made 176 in its first innings of 176.

In its victory chase to end a five-year Cup drought, North captain Imran Jan, was the only wicket to fall, LBW to fast bowler Marlon Black for three.

A total of 17 wickets tumbled yesterday which reflected either poor batting or shared domination by the bowlers on the tricky pitch. On the first day 14 wickets fell.

Lincoln Roberts and Zaheer Ali resumed on 34 and one respectively. Their fifth wicket partnership was worth 62 runs when Ramnarine got the breakthrough by forcing Ali, the pre-lunch aggressor, to offer a catch to Mukesh Persad at the gully position.

Ali departed for 31, which included three well timed fours, and was closely followed by Roberts who topscored for the North with a cautious innings worth 56 runs after three hours and 12 minutes at the crease. He faced 125 balls which produced two sixes and two fours.

Ramnarine forced the batsmen to use their feet and time the ball as he wrapped up the innings with the last six wickets costing only nine runs just before tea. His last four wickets cost zero. Play was halted, due to fading light, with 5.4 overs remaining.

West Indies 'A' team players Lendl Simmons (11*) and Bravo (3*) will resume North Cup hunt on Saturday.

* SOURCE: Trinidad Guardian.