Cen­tral Sports were com­mend­ed for their coura­geous fight­ing qual­i­ties de­spite go­ing down to a nar­row 12-run de­feat on their de­but on Sun­day in the T&T Women’s Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion Tour­na­ment.

Play­ing at home on the In­vaders Recre­ation Ground in Fe­lic­i­ty, the youth­ful Cen­tral Sports girls were beat­en but not dis­graced by the more ex­pe­ri­enced Crick­et Lovers team of Ari­ma.

The vis­i­tors won the toss and took first strike, and led by a pow­er­ful in­nings of an un­de­feat­ed 62 by cap­tain Amy Hold­er, Crick­et Lovers amassed 143 for the loss of three wick­ets in their al­lot­ted 20 overs.

She hit 11 bound­aries off 55 balls with the next best score com­ing from open­er Nicole George with 21.

In their run chase, Cen­tral Sports got sol­id con­tri­bu­tions from Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal (21), Sameera Naidoo (14), and Danel­la Matthews (13) but just fell short clos­ing at 131 for six when their overs ran out.

Crick­et Lovers cap­tain Hold­er and Giselle Gon­za­les grabbed two wick­ets apiece to re­strict Cen­tral Sports and claim full points in the fix­ture.

Pres­i­dent of the Cen­tral Sports Richard Ramkissoon con­grat­u­lat­ed Crick­et Lovers on their win, but was en­cour­aged by the grit­ty dis­play by his Cen­tral Sports team who he said showed great ma­tu­ri­ty for their young age.

He was es­pe­cial­ly pleased that the girls were able to show what they had learned in the two in­ten­sive crick­et camps run by his top men’s Pre­mier­ship I club, in con­junc­tion with Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ch­agua­nas West Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly.

“They are all grad­u­ates of the camps con­duct­ed in 2022 and 2023 which has re­sult­ed in their par­tic­i­pa­tion this sea­son in the women’s com­pe­ti­tion for which we are proud,” said Ramkissoon.

He ex­pressed his ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the con­tri­bu­tion of Clas­sic Tiles and its di­rec­tor Dr Nyri­ka Singh who is a men­tor of the Cen­tral Sports team.

al­so thanked were Fine Choice Lim­it­ed, Cen­tral In­te­ri­or De­sign, and Tile Ware­house whose sup­port has made it pos­si­ble for the girls to re­alise their po­ten­tial in the game.

Ad­dress­ing the play­ers, par­ents and spon­sors be­fore the match MP Ram­bal­ly said the ef­fort is of great ben­e­fit to the com­mu­ni­ty and cre­ates new and ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for the girl crick­eters.

Ram­bal­ly de­scribed as a great suc­cess the col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Cen­tral Sports and the Ch­agua­nas West MP’s Con­stituen­cy Of­fice to or­gan­ise the camps dur­ing the school va­ca­tion, which at­tract­ed more than 150 par­tic­i­pants over con­sec­u­tive Sun­day morn­ings.

“The fruits of our ini­tia­tive are be­gin­ning to man­i­fest it­self in the per­for­mance of the team and we in­tend to con­tin­ue to press for­ward to make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of the young girls,” said Ram­bal­ly.

He al­so ac­knowl­edged every­one in­clud­ing the coach­es, par­ents, and vol­un­teers for their in­valu­able sup­port.

Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion (50 overs)

At Bug­gy Haynes Ground

UWI Women CC 79 all out (21.1 overs) (Sta­cy Ann King 27, Keni­ka Cas­sar 12 not out, Vic­to­ria Madoo 12, Daniel­la Seep­er­sad 3/14, Lee Ann Kir­by 3/18, Sha­nia Kistow 3/24) vs Hi­bis­cus Women 80/2 (28.5 overs) (Jerveena Pol­locks­ingh 23, Za­kiyah Har­ri­lal14, Lee Ann Kir­by 13 not out). Hi­bis­cus Women won by 8 wick­ets.

At Brazil Recre­ation Ground

AC Women 260/5 (40) (Shan­ice Pas­call 125 not out, Re­niece Boyce 33, Ler­ra Jen­nings 28 not out, Za­heera Mo­hit 2/36) vs Tech­nocrats 177 all out (31.5 overs) (Jo­di­an Mor­gan 69, Tr­isha Mar­quis 24, Crys­tal Toney 17, Ka­jol Dal­gir 3/29, Crys­tal Hanslal 3/39, Re­niece Boyce 2/24). AC Women won by 83 runs.

Pow­er­gen Women- Bye

Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion (30 overs)

At In­vaders Ground

Crick­et Lovers 143/3 (20 overs) (Amy Hold­er 62 not out, Nicole George 21) vs Cen­tral Sports 131/6 (20) (Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal 21, Sameera Naidoo 14, Denel­la Matthews 13, Amy Hold­er 2/18, Giselle Gon­za­les 2/26). Crick­et Lovers won by 12 runs.

At Bar­rack­pore

Vic­to­ria CC 5/173 (25) (Abi­gail Boodoo 68, Ro­hi­ni Ram­s­ingh 50, Chel­say Sookhram 14, Keisha Lewis 2/48, Lisa Mo­han 2/30) vs Wa­ter­loo All­stars 29 all out (8.5 overs) (Shan­ta Roopchan 3/1, Chel­say Sookhram 2/4, Amala Dur­gadeen 2/5). Vic­to­ria CC won by 144 runs.

Play­ers Sports Club 185/4 (22 overs) (Sum­intra Ram­sawak 46, Glene­cia Dodough 42 not out, Sha­nia Au­gus­tus 34, Na­dia Mo­hammed 18, Stephanie Anoop 2/28) vs BSCA 56/9 (22) (Bren­da Solozano 26 not out, Shan­matie Nowrang 4/14, Na­dia Mo­hammed 2/10. Play­ers Sports Club won by 129 runs.

ML­CA- BYE