Flamin­gos failed in their at­tempt to si­lence Hum­ming­birds as was promised by their cap­tain Matthew Patrick when the teams met in the ti­tle match of the Na­mal­co Un­der -23 Tour­na­ment. Hum­ming­birds won the match by 52 runs to win the first ti­tle in the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) 2023 sea­son at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main Cou­va on Sat­ur­day.

Be­cause of a de­layed start be­cause of rain and fur­ther in­ter­rup­tions, the match was re­duced to 25 overs per team.

Both cap­tains did not con­tribute to their re­spec­tive to­tals with Cephas Coop­er, the Hum­ming­birds cap­tain fail­ing to trou­ble the score­board and Matthew Patrick the op­pos­ing skip­per scor­ing just a sin­gle.

Bat­ting first af­ter be­ing in­sert­ed by Patrick, Hum­ming­birds lost their first wick­et with on­ly five runs on the board when open­er Mbe­ki Joseph was run out for five runs and one run lat­er Coop­er was out with­out scor­ing. The slide con­tin­ue when An­to­nio Gomez de­part­ed for one and Navin Bidaisee lost his wick­et for nine to leave Hum­ming­birds 66/4.

How­ev­er, Tariq Mo­hammed held the in­ning to­geth­er while wick­ets keep falling around him with Justyn Gan­goo (16), Nicholas Ali (4), Damion Jochim (11) and Avinash Ma­habirs­ingh (7).

Mo­hammed was the sev­enth wick­et down with the score on 116/7 and Flamin­gos looked set to wrap up the tail. He faced 46 balls and five fours.

How­ev­er, the last pair of Jevon George and Chris Sadanan put to­geth­er a very use­ful part­ner­ship of 48 runs in 4.2 overs to push their to­tal to 168/9 in their 25 overs.

Ex­cept for Joseph's runout, the next sev­en wick­ets fell to catch­es with open­ing bats­man Crys­t­ian Thur­ton tak­ing five of them.

Bowl­ing for Flamin­gos Lemuel Matthews was the pick of the bowlers with 3/31 off four overs, while Justin Man­ick took 2/27 al­so off four overs.

Hum­ming­birds' George was named 'Man Of The Match' for his 25 runs and three wick­ets and his team­mate Gan­goo was ad­judged the 'Play­er of The Tour­na­ment'.

In re­ply, Flamin­gos' chase of 169 for vic­to­ry got off to a rocky start with Thur­ton be­ing the first bats­man to lose his wick­et with­out a run on the board. Isa­iah Ali (5) fol­lowed him 22 runs lat­er while Aaron Bankay played a sim­i­lar an­chor role just like Mo­hammed did in Hum­ming­birds in­nings, with wick­ets falling around him. Patrick (1), Justin Man­ick (1), Den­zil An­toine (6), and Daniel Ram­sawak for two.

Sameer Ali scored 38 runs bat­ting at num­ber eight. He faced 33 balls in which he sent three to the bound­ary and struck two for max­i­mums as his team could on­ly muster 116/8 off their 25 overs to lose by 52 runs.

TEAMS

HUM­MING­BIRDS: Cephas Coop­er (cap­tain), Tariq Mo­hammed, Navin Bidaisee, An­to­nio Gomez (wick­et­keep­er), Damion Joachim, Aaron Nanan, Nicholas Ali, Kyle Roopc­hand, Avinash Ma­habirs­ingh, Jevon George, Vanir Ma­haraj, Mbe­ki Joseph, Justyn Gan­goo, Chris Sadanan; Stephen Ramkisson (man­ag­er), Amin For­ge­nie (coach).

FLAMIN­GOS: Matthew Patrick (cap­tain), Den­zil An­toine, Daniel Ram­sawak, Isa­iah Ali, Aaron Bankay, Rahul Piti­ram, Shi­va Sankar, Justin Man­ick, Sameer Ali, Ryan Ban­doo, Lemuel Matthews, Am­rit Dass, Crys­t­ian Thur­ton, Kieron John; Frank Sim­mons (man­ag­er), Gibran Mo­hammed (coach).

FI­NAL SCORES

HUM­MING­BIRDS 168/9 in 25 overs (Tariq Mo­hammed 48, Jevon George 25, Chris Sadanan 24, Justyn Gan­goo 16, Navin Bidaisee 13) Bowl­ing -Lemuel Matthews 3/31, Justin Man­ick 2/27 vs FLAMIN­GOS 116/8 in 25 overs (Aaron Bankay 46, Sameer Ali 38) Bol­wing - Jevon George 3/22, Damion Joachim 2/7) Re­sult: Hum­ming­bird won by 52 runs.