IAN WA­SON

Sport Cor­re­spon­dent

Mid­dle-or­der bats­man Fa­reez Ali struck an im­por­tant half-cen­tu­ry (50) and pace bowler Alexan­der Chase took three wick­ets for 45 runs that helped Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of Ch­agua­nas lift their first Sec­ondary Schools Crick­et League na­tion­al ti­tle in 12 years.

Pre­sen­ta­tion Ch­agua­nas, play­ing at home with their un­beat­en run on the line, turned back de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do in front of their peers and teach­ers at the school com­pound in Ch­agua­nas by 31 runs, Tues­day.

Ali, the na­tion­al Un­der-19 cap­tain who trans­ferred from Na­pari­ma Col­lege, came to the crease when ‘Pres Ch­agua­nas’, who chose to bat first, were in some ear­ly trou­ble at 27 for 2.

While at the wick­et, Ali saw two more wick­ets fall from his view at the non-strik­er’s end and sud­den­ly the score was 32 for 4.

Aidan Racha was the chief tor­men­tor with 3 for 21 in his open­ing six-over spell.

But Ali, who is a ca­pa­ble all­rounder, played as a bats­man since he is still re­cov­er­ing from an in­jury and is not yet cleared to bowl.

Ali struck five fours and a six in his 106-ball knock. He shared in an 80-run part­ner­ship with Bran­don Phillip who scored an im­por­tant 27 to take the score from 32 for 4 to 112 for 5 to change the game.

San Fer­nan­do need­ed to keep Ch­agua­nas un­der 150 runs to pre­vent them from earn­ing a bat­ting bonus point.

Ch­agua­nas de­cid­ed to bat first when they won the toss. The de­ci­sion put the tour­na­ment in Ch­agua­nas’ favour as San Fer­nan­do need­ed to earn at least four more bonus points with the win to over­take Ch­agua­nas in the sea­son fi­nale.

Ch­agua­nas lost a few wick­ets and were in dan­ger of falling for less than 150.

The San Fer­nan­do spin­ners put Ch­agua­nas in a dif­fi­cult po­si­tion and when they lost Ali at 126 for 6, San Fer­nan­do were in with a chance to re­strict Ch­agua­nas to 150.

Per­haps San Fer­nan­do skip­per Ja­cen Agard took too long to bring him­self or Racha back in­to the at­tack, but im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tions from Ramine Sawh (10) Aneal Rooplal and Alexan­der Chase saw them move past the im­por­tant 150 and the all- im­por­tant point to make it im­pos­si­ble for San Fer­nan­do to over­take them even if they lost.

Ch­agua­nas closed on 158 for 8 in 47 overs.

There was some dis­crep­an­cy at the end of the in­nings as San Fer­nan­do ar­gued that the um­pires should have al­lowed them to bowl the 50 overs. The um­pires con­tend­ed the cut off time had ar­rived and the in­nings was deemed closed.

How­ev­er ac­cord­ing to ar­ti­cle 4.1(b) of the com­pe­ti­tion rules, “if the team field­ing first fails to bowl the re­quired num­ber of overs by the sched­uled time for ces­sa­tion of the first ses­sion, play shall con­tin­ue un­til the re­quired num­ber of overs has been bowled. Un­less oth­er­wise de­ter­mined by the ref­er­ee…”.

San Fer­nan­do felt they were not giv­en the chance to bowl out Ch­agua­nas for the ex­tra bowl­ing point that would have helped them get over the line in the stand­ings.

But all of that would be a non is­sue as San Fer­nan­do failed to reach the tar­get. Bonus points did not even come in­to play as Ch­agua­nas com­plet­ed the League with an un­beat­en record.

San Fer­nan­do got a promis­ing start from open­ers Riyaad Mo­hammed and Levi Ghan­ny.

To­geth­er they put on 58 run part­ner­ship un­til Mo­hammed was caught for 31 in the 16th over. Mo­hammed, who start­ed the day 69 runs be­hind sea­son top scor­er Fa­ti­ma’s Zachary Siewah, was eye­ing the most runs for the sea­son to de­fend his per­son­al ti­tle.

But de­spite falling for 31, he left San Fer­nan­do in a very good po­si­tion, as they need­ed 101 runs from 34.4 overs.

But dis­as­ter struck. Styl­ish T&T U-15 cap­tain Bren­dan Boodoo, who took a stu­pen­dous catch in the Ch­agua­nas in­nings, played an au­da­cious shot to be bowled for a three-ball duck.

Wick­ets con­tin­ued to fall reg­u­lar­ly and it looked like Ghan­ny would be left stand­ing alone. Racha bat­ted at num­ber five and was the on­ly oth­er bats­man apart from the open­ers to reach dou­ble fig­ures.

Even­tu­al­ly Ghan­ny was ninth out for 49 as San Fer­nan­do fold­ed for 127, giv­ing Ch­agua­nas their first ti­tle in 12 years. Alexan­der Chase matched his na­tion­al team­mate Racha with 3 for 45.

Pre­sen­ta­tion Ch­agua­nas man­ag­er Roland Ho­sein shared how spe­cial the win was, say­ing: “We start­ed train­ing since last year. Up to over six months of train­ing to reach to this point in time. It is a re­al­ly in­de­scrib­able feel­ing. It hasn’t ful­ly sunk in as yet.

Skip­per Justin Jagge­sar echoed his man­ag­er’s sen­ti­ments.

He said: “There’s been a bunch of guys been try­ing to work hard to win the U-19.We won U-14, U-16, but the U-19 was the on­ly ti­tle that we’ve been want­i­ng to put our hands on. Since the be­gin­ning of the sea­son all we want­ed was just to win every match. So we went out every game one hun­dred per­cent with our best ef­forts.”

SCORES:

Pres Ch­agua­nas 158/8 (47 overs) (Fa­reez Ali 50; Bran­don Phillip 27, Aid­i­an Racha 3-21) vs Pres San Fer­nan­do 127 (40.2 overs) (Levi Ghan­ny 49; Riyaad Mo­hammed 31; Alexan­der Chase 3-45). Pres Ch­agua­nas won by 31 runs.

St. Mary’s Col­lege 188 all out (Samir Sa­roop 101; Aidan Lakhans­ingh 4-29; Ish­mael Ali 3-37; Aaron Bas­ant 2-25) vs Vish­nu Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege 192/2 (43.3 overs) (Ish­mael Ali 106 not out; Is­hant Roop­nar­ine 48; Savir Sa­roop 1/40).

Vish­nu Boys won by 8 wick­ets.

St Bene­dict’s 145 (39.4) (Aid­i­an Bas­deo 41; Re­nal­do Fournil­li­er 4-8) vs Hillview 150/2 (26.3) (Joseph Men­doza 59, Re­nal­do Fournil­li­er 41 no). Hillview won by 8 wick­ets

Fa­ti­ma beat Princes Town West by de­fault.

STAND­INGS

Pl*Team**P*W*L*Pts

1*Pres*Ch­agua­nas*9*9*0*167

2*Pres*San’do*9*7*2*13

3*Vish­nu*Boys*9*6*3*125

4*Fa­ti­ma**9*6*4*114

5*Na­pari­ma*9*6*3*103

6*Hillview*9*4*5*87

7*St*Mary’s**9*4*5*83

8*St*Bene­dict’s*9*3*6*77

9*Princes*Town*West*9*1*8*37

10El*Do­ra­do*East*9*0*9*9