Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 22, 2009 Sports
Large crowd turn out for ‘Old Stagers’ match
In sultry conditions at the Malteenoes Sports Club (MSC), former Guyana and West Indies players turned back the clock in a fun-filled ‘Old School’ 25-over cricket match between an International select side captained by Mark Harper and a MSC combination.
A raucous crowd, much larger than any this season for Guyana’s regional first-class games, watched as 51-year-old former Guyana middle order batsman Mark Harper lead from the front with an entertaining 51 with five fours and a massive straight six as his team reached 172-8 off their allotted 25 overs.
Off-spinner Gregory Williams (3-20) was the pick of the bowlers for MSC who replied with 174-9 in 24 overs with former middle order batsman Linden Gilbert top scoring with 46 and ex-Guyana first-class player Neil Barry making 41.
Harper, who scored four centuries and 12 fifties from 42 first-class matches between 1975 and 1991, blossomed from a sedate start to give the youngsters watching a lesson in sweeping and using his feet to the spinners before he was stumped by former West Indies ‘B’ team keeper Kenneth Wong.
Former Guyana medium pacer Roderick Lovell clobbered three massive sixes in his cameo 27 while young Kevin Williams hit a robust unbeaten 27.
Former Guyana youth player Anthony Rigby and Harper opened the batting on a slow track and would have been relieved that two of the MSC’s top bowlers in the 1980s Colwin Cort (back home on holiday from England) and former West Indies pacer Ian Bishop (in Guyana to do Television work on the ODIs here) opted to watch the match from the side lines instead of running in with the new ball.
Their younger past bowling counterpart, 35-year-old Colin Stuart, who played six Tests for the West Indies bowled with some pace and movement off the seam in his first competitive match in years, while former Guyana pacer Jermaine Neblett shared the new ball with him.
Once Neblett removed Rigby, Ex-national batsman David Harper (13) was brilliantly caught and bowled by left-hander Victor Dias while former Guyana first-class batsman Nolan McKenzie (8) was deceived in the flight and bowled by off-spinner Sean Devers.
Harper and Lovell then took the attack to the bowlers before Williams grabbed three quick wickets.
The 42-year-old Barry, who played the last of his nine first-class matches in 1996, retired to give others a chance to bat after hitting a six over cover, while Shawn Holder soon fell for 18.
Dias got going with an audacious cover driven boundary but did not last long while Gilbert frequently found the boundaries in his rapid 46 to see MSC to victory.
The match was organised by MSC as a reunion of several former players who are in Guyana for this weekend’s international cricket and there was a feeling of nostalgia as the ‘old stagers’ rolled back the years.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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