Eastern American Cricket Association
Enmore In Sweet Spot At The Top

By John L. Aaron
Enmore Cricket Club, like a sleek swift blade, continues to slice its way quietly through the night and into the hearts of its opponents, and now sits atop the EACA pile of players.

Enmore Outmuscles Warriors
Enmore denied East Side Warriors’ opener S. Alve a century, then denied the team a victory last weekend at Hecksher State Park.

Batting first, East Side Warriors rattled up 186 all out in 32.3 overs, primarily behind the bats of Alve, 93 and fellow opener A. Quadeer, 36 – an opening partnership of 109. However, the Warriors quickly folded, adding only 77 runs for the remaining 8 wickets. Enmore’s Jagnarine 7-0-27-5 and Saheed and Jamal each with two wickets for 40 and 35 runs respectively, were responsible for the Warriors’ collapse.

Enmore with a 7-1 record quickly made it 8-1 (40 points), by dashing any hopes the Warriors had of adding to their 14 points tally.

Enmore behind the loss of only two wickets, quickly wrapped up the game in 23.5 overs at the 188-run mark and their eight victory. East Side Warriors hosts Hillside at Hecksher State Park in tomorrow’s fixture, while Enmore entertains Atlantis at Baisley Pond Park.

Empire Denies Atlantis Mortgage
Atlantis looking to add some mortgage insurance to its 2006 season tally, was denied by Empire Mortgage at Baisley Pond Park in Queens, last Sunday. Batting first Atlantis struggled in the cage to reach only 134 all out in 39.1 overs. Atlantis’ top scorer was newcomer Manoj Sirju with 30, including three towering sixes. However, with skipper Cuthbert Mendonca opening and contributing 21, along with the previous week’s centurion Swanscot Benjamin, 19, and Harry Thompson, 11, the rest of the Atlantis batsmen folded their tents in probably the most important game of their season, as the team struggles to keep up with the top teams. S. Deopaul 8-0-24-3 and all-rounder Bhim George with figures of 7.1-1-20-2 were the Empire hit men.

Empire in reply quickly erased the target and any chance Atlantis had of making any late game heroics. Anand Persaud opening with R. Persaud started off gingerly losing the latter Persaud for 6 in the third over. Anand Persaud was then joined by Bhim George and was content to play a sheet-anchor role as George announced his presence at the small park with 6 sixes and 6 fours in his knock of 80, before being caught by Sheriff off the bowling of M. Sirju. Ironically, it was George who grabbed the wicket of Sirju in successive matches in successive days. Mendonca and Sheriff grabbed the only other two wickets dropped by Empire, resulting from two brilliant stumpings by wicketkeeper Keith Aaron. L. Prashad with a quick 23, also shared in the sixes festival, adding three of his own, the last one heralding the victory for Empire Mortgage.

The Empire wickets fell at 6 and 73, as the team went on to keep its hopes of making the top four teams alive with 32 points and in fourth place of the 13-team roster. Empire meets East Bank at Brentwood tomorrow, while Atlantis visits Enmore at Baisley Pond Park.

Everest/ACS Slams
Door On Ambassadors
Everest/ACS seeking to stay close to the league–leading Enmore, was not taking any chances with last weekend’s game against the lowly Unified Ambassadors at Lido Beach.

Batting first after winning the toss, Everest/ACS raced to 266 all out in 38.5 overs, with the runs being distributed among all the batsmen, especially the lower order line-up of Karran Ganesh, 53, A. Roberts, 39 and T. Walke, 21. Amjad Khan’s contribution of 36 included seven 4’s. K. Ramlakhan was Ambassadors’ most successful bowler with figures of 7-0-36-4.

Unified Ambassadors in response, lost nine of their wickets while posting only 79 runs on the tins. Top scorer was K. Ramlarkhan with 35, the only Ambassadors’ batsman to reach double figures. S. Amin and T, Walke removed the Ambassadors’ opening duo and ended up with three wickets apiece, while T. Hastoo grabbed two of the Ambassadors wickets. Tomorrow, Everest/ACS hosts Golden Arrow at Lido Beach.

NY Challengers Over Hillside
The Steve Massiah led NY Challengers inched closer to securing a berth for this years Big-4 EACA playoffs and in their bid to repeat as champions, by defeating a clawing and scratching Hillside Sports Club at Randall’s Island, last weekend.

Batting first, Challengers behind centuries from skipper Steve Massiah (119) and all-rounder Kaleem Bux (108 retired) established a possible third-wicket league record of 200 runs, after losing the wickets of openers Andrew Gonsalves, 7 and Q. Farrouq, 11. Massiah was the more aggressive of the two batsmen, before being caught off the bowling of V. Naidu This was Massiah’s second successive century in as many weeks and batting higher up in the order. NY Challengers’ 292 for four was made off of the allotted 40 overs.

In return, Hillside fell short by 86 runs, in 34 overs, reaching 206 all out, with Challengers’ skipper Massiah returning figures of 8-0-47-4. The victory pushed NY Challengers to within one point of league-leading Enmore and two points ahead of Everest/ACS, now sitting in the third spot.

Richmond Hill Blocks Golden Arrow
Richmond Hill played spoiler to the advancing cause of Sew Shivnarine’s Golden Arrow last weekend at Hecksher State Park. Batting first Golden Arrow made 166 with the Hill responding with 171 and the victory, behind the bat of Talwant “Cambio” Balwant’s unbeaten 70. Other match details were not available at press time. However, the victory boosts Richmond Hill to 32 points and fourth place, while Golden Arrow is 10 points behind and in the eight position of the league’s standings.

This weekend Golden Arrow tackles Everest/ACS at Lido Beach, while Richmond Hill visits Bayshore Tigers at Hecksher State Park.
All matches are scheduled for 1:00 PM starts.
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