Central crush South West in Inter Zone U-17s

Kieron John slammed the second-best score of the First Round, a well-constructed 83 and got valuable support from Nicholas Kanhai who made 54, while Denzil Antoine chipped in with 32 as Central racked up 288 for nine in their allotted 50 overs.

Bowling for South West, Raja Premchand took two wickets for 46 runs from his 10 overs, while Jamal Ramnath grabbed 2/67 and Lorenzo Loubon snatched 2/37.

When South West Zone batted, they were routed for 86 in 30 overs. They had no answer to Jayden Searles who put them on the ropes with 4/13 in eight overs, and Nicholas Kanhai who snared 2/24 in seven overs.

Also winning emphatically were defending champions East Zone against Tobago at Cane Farm, Tacarigua, romping home by 128 runs to give their campaign the best possible start.

Batting first, East Zone chalked up 225 all out in 49.5 overs with Leonardo Julien making an excellent 84, and Leonardo Francis contributing 48.

For Tobago, there were three wickets each for Joshua James and Shane Ali, while Shakeel Carrington and Keston Rodney grabbed two apiece in a match that was played on Thursday, one day later than the other First Round fixtures.

In their turn at the crease, Tobago were dismissed for 97 in 40 overs with Joshua James top-scoring with 17, while Dari Roberts and Orlando James were the only other batsmen making it into double figures with 12 runs each.

Outstanding East Zone cricketer Samir Ali, was virtually unplayable snatching 6/29 in 10 overs, while Sameer Mohammed, Rivaldo Ramlogan and Ceejay Rampersad all took one each to complete the clinical demolition job. At the Queen’s Royal College Ground in St Clair, North Zone rallied to score a four-wicket victory against North East, who put up a stout batting performance in making 197 all out in 46 overs.

Christian Ramroop tallied 38, Darien Dodds struck 37 and Andy Mahase compiled 36 in an encouraging show of defiance against the North bowlers led by Adam Reyes with the best figures of 3/51 in nine overs, and Giovanni Letren, with 2/40 in eight.

In their run chase, the North Zone effort was spearheaded by Michael Ambard whose 66 laid the foundation for the calculated victory, with allrounders Letren (28 not out) and Reyes (25) getting into the act, ending the innings at 199/6 in 42 overs.

And at Sancho Ground, St Julien Village in Princes Town, South East Zone scored the biggest upset of the opening round with a 50-run win against South in a low-scoring nail-biter.

Batting first South East made 166 in 39.2 overs as their batting line-up exhibited great patience and maturity, led by Kevin Ramkisson (32), Jevon George (31), Avinash Mahabirsingh (29) and Javed Arjoon (24).

On what proved to be a difficult wicket for batting, Rattan Singh took 3/21 in five overs and Jalen Agaro snatched 2/31 in six overs to help South Zone restrict their opponents to a target they would have fancied as gettable.

However, South East bowlers had different ideas, working in tandem to dismiss South for just 116 in 38.2 overs with only Mbekz Joseph (48) and Antonio Gomez (21) offering any resistance in a disappointing batting effort.

Nicholas Ali was the main South East tormentor with 4/28 in 10 overs with four maidens.

Mahabirsingh took 2/12 in 10 overs, Quincy Roodal grabbed 2/14 in five and George returned with 2/21 in 6.1 overs.