Vin­ode Mam­chan

Con­sis­tent rain pelt­ing down on an al­ready sat­u­rat­ed Guaracara Park out­field forced the aban­don­ment of both Na­tion­al T20 quar­ter­fi­nals match­es yes­ter­day and as a re­sult de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Queen's Park and First Cit­i­zens Clarke Road are through to the se­mi-fi­nals of the tour­na­ment.

First vice pres­i­dent of the TTCB, Dud­nath Ramkessoon ex­plained that un­der the T20 tour­na­ment rules if a clash is washed out at the knock­out stage, the team with most wins up to that point would ad­vance. Queen's Park was due to meet Es­mer­al­da at 3pm and the Parkites have four wins as com­pared to two wins for Es­mer­al­da. As a re­sult, Queen's Park will ad­vance to the semis. In the oth­er game which was card­ed for 7pm be­tween Mer­ry Boys and Clarke Road, the lat­ter ad­vances based on net run rate. Both Mer­ry Boys and Clarke Road have the same num­ber of wins (three each) and the sec­ond tie break­er is head to head clash. Well both teams played in dif­fer­ent groups so this did not come in­to play. The third tie break­er is the net run rate and Clarke Road has a NRR of +1.17, while Mer­ry­boys have a NRR of +0.97.

It was a case of se­ri­ous heart break for the boys from Diego Mar­tin be­cause last year they were oust­ed at the quar­ter-fi­nals stages by the same Clarke Road team, when rain again washed out the clash. The com­pe­ti­tion con­tin­ues to­day weath­er per­mit­ting, with Cal­drac Sports com­ing up against Moo­sai at 3pm and Seenath's Au­to Bam­boo play­ing Pow­er­Gen in the night cap game at 7pm.

The teams are bat­tling for a top prize of $150,000.