The Wind­ward Is­lands Vol­ca­noes pulled off an un­for­get­table one-wick­et win against the Guyana Harpy Ea­gles in their 2024 CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Cup open­er at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba on Tues­day night.

Bat­ting first, the Harpy Ea­gles post­ed a chal­leng­ing to­tal of 274-5 from their 50 overs. Cap­tain Tevin Im­lach led the charge with a com­posed 67-ball 65, find­ing the bound­ary five times and clear­ing it once.

He was well-sup­port­ed by Keemo Paul who launched a late as­sault, fin­ish­ing un­beat­en on 54 from just 25 balls with one four and six six­es.

Con­tri­bu­tions al­so came from Tage­nar­ine Chan­der­paul and Kevlon An­der­son, who chipped in with 49 and 42 re­spec­tive­ly.

Shadrack Descarte was the pick of the Vol­ca­noes’ bowlers, fin­ish­ing with fig­ures of 2-53 from eight overs.

The Vol­ca­noes’ re­sponse start­ed rocky, slump­ing to 58-5 by the 12th over. How­ev­er, a crit­i­cal 81-run sixth-wick­et part­ner­ship be­tween Descarte and wick­et­keep­er Dil­lon Dou­glas sparked hopes of a come­back.

Descarte scored a brisk 60 off 62 de­liv­er­ies, laced with sev­en fours and a six, be­fore falling in the 26th over.

Dou­glas, play­ing on­ly his sec­ond List A match, con­tin­ued the fight­back with a re­mark­able in­nings, an­chor­ing the chase with a top score of 90 off 100 balls, in­clud­ing eight bound­aries and two six­es.

His re­silience kept the Vol­ca­noes in the hunt, and al­though he de­part­ed in the 43rd over with the score at 223, the low­er or­der en­sured his ef­forts were not in vain.

Darel Cyrus con­tributed a valu­able 29 runs be­fore he fell with just over four overs re­main­ing and 30 runs still re­quired.

The fi­nal pair of Ken­neth Dem­ber and Gilon Tyson then dis­played nerves of steel, guid­ing the team home with three balls to spare. Dem­ber con­tributed 20 off 18 balls while Tyson weighed in with 17 off 13 balls. Nial Smith led the Harpy Ea­gles’ bowl­ing with 3-46 from 9.4 overs, while Kevin Sin­clair claimed 2-66 from his 10 overs.

CMC

SCORES

GUYANA HARPY EA­GLES 274-5 in 50 overs (Tevin Im­lach 65 not out, Keemo Paul 54 not out, Tage­nar­ine Chan­der­paul 49, Kevlon An­der­son 42. Shadrack Descarte 2-53).

WIND­WARD IS­LANDS VOL­CA­NOES 277-9 in 49.3 overs (Dil­lon Dou­glas 90, Shadrack Descarte 60, Ken­neth Dem­ber 20 not out, Gilon Tyson 17 not out. Nial Smith 3-46, Kevin Sin­clair 2-66).

Wind­ward Is­lands Vol­ca­noes won by 1 wick­et.