Vin­ode Mam­chan

Moo­sai Sports showed their su­pe­ri­or­i­ty over an in­ex­pe­ri­enced Cal­drac Sports Club and romped in­to the semi­fi­nals of the Na­tion­al T20 crick­et se­ries with a com­mand­ing 37-run vic­to­ry at Guaracara Park, last evening.Scores: Moo­sai's 157/7 (20) vs Cal­drac 120/7(20).Af­ter William Perkins had ham­mered a thrilling 59 to set up Moo­sai at 157/7, the Cal­drac Boys were al­ways be­hind the eight ball and in the end they fell well short. Chas­ing such an im­pos­ing score against an at­tack that in­clud­ed for­mer West In­dies pac­er Mervyn Dil­lon, for­mer na­tion­al off-spin­ner Ken Hazel and cur­rent na­tion­al team left-arm spin­ner Yan­nick Ot­t­ley, it was al­ways go­ing to be dif­fi­cult and Cal­drac, al­though get­ting a good foun­da­tion, could not in­crease the tem­po in the end.

Mark Deyal, the son of for­mer na­tion­al play­er De­onar­ine Deyal, scored 32 at the top of the or­der to lay the foun­da­tion but where Cal­drac fell down was when ac­cel­er­a­tion was need­ed. Deyal and Rouse took them to 62 for one when Deyal fell, and al­though Rouse tried to lift the tem­po, he alone could not do it. Hazel, us­ing all his guile, was able to stem the scor­ing and end­ed with two for 23. Al­so get­ting two wick­ets was Dil­lon, who ac­count­ed for Cal­drac's last hope in Rouse (23).Ear­li­er, clear blue skies greet­ed the crick­eters at the pic­turesque Gauaracara Park, much dif­fer­ent to what was the case on the open­ing day of the crick­et on Mon­day. How­ev­er, the rain on Mon­day still seemed to have dic­tat­ed the at­ten­dance and there were hard­ly any spec­ta­tors when play be­gan. Moo­sai Sports, win­ning the toss and bat­ting first, got off to a fly­ing start with William Perkins send­ing the white ball to all parts of the ground.

The game was run­ning away from Cal­drac when left-arm spin­ner Dane Teelucks­ingh was in­tro­duced in­to the at­tack and he brought mat­ters un­der con­trol with the wick­et off Perkins. The diminu­tive right-han­der, try­ing to clear the bound­ary at long on was caught for 59. His knock spanned on­ly 29 balls and in­clud­ed sev­en fours and three six­es.Off-spin­ner Miguel Ma­habir al­so got in­to the act and was im­pres­sive, vary­ing his of­fer­ings to mes­merise the Moo­sai bats­men. Ma­habir got wick­ets at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals and al­so dried up the scor­ing and Moo­sai, which threat­ened more, end­ed with a par score of 157 for eight off its 20 overs. Ma­habir, the for­mer Mer­ry Boys play­er, end­ed with 4/16 and Teelucks­ingh took 2/21. To­wards the end of Moo­sai's in­nings Amir Khan slammed 19 not out with one six and na­tion­al play­er Yan­nick Ot­t­ley 20 with one four.Moo­sai will now move on to face Queen's Park in the semi­fi­nals.

Mean­while, Mer­ry­boys is al­so in­to the semis af­ter it de­feat­ed First Cit­i­zens Clarke Road by sev­en runs in their rain-af­fect­ed quar­ter­fi­nal clash at Guaracara Park on Mon­day night.

Af­ter the first game be­tween Queen's Park and Es­mer­al­da was com­plete­ly washed out, the play­ers of both Mer­ry­boys and Clarke Road were just milling around the ground hop­ing for play and af­ter much work by the ground staff, play was able to get un­der­way at 9.30 pm. It was de­cid­ed that both teams would play a Five/Five clash and Clarke Road won the toss and asked Mer­ry­boys to take first strike.

Open­ers Mario Bel­con and Shem­roy Bar­ring­ton at­tacked from ball one and Mer­ry­boys was off to a fly­er. The two pounced on any­thing off line or length that was of­fered by the Clarke Road bowlers and in the end Mer­ry­boys closed on an im­pres­sive 70 for two in its five overs. Lead­ing the way was the Guyanese Bar­ring­ton who stroked 29 with two six­es, while Bel­con got 22.

Clarke Road, hav­ing to climb a moun­tain to get past the Mer­ry­boys score, got a good start from na­tion­al wick­et­keep­er/bats­man Nicholas Pooran and was in the game un­til the last over. Pooran slammed four six­es in his knock of 33 but he fell to Rayad Em­rit and Clarke Road was left need­ing 11 runs in the fi­nal over to win the match.

Off-spin­ner Kas­tri Singh was the bowler pre­ferred by Mer­ry­boys and he did not dis­ap­point, as he was able to re­strict Shaz­an Bab­wah and Bar­ba­di­an Kyle May­ers to just three runs and Mer­ry­boys walked away win­ners by sev­en runs. They will now await the win­ner of the Pow­er­Gen ver­sus Bam­boo clash which was due to be played on Tues­day night, for a semi­fi­nal bat­tle.

SCORES

Moo­sai Sports 157/8 (20) (William Perkins 59, Amir Khan 19 n.o., Yan­nick Ot­t­ley 20, Miguel Ma­habir 4/16, Dane Teelucks­ingh 2/21) vs Cal­drac 120/7 (20) (Mark Deyal 32, Franklyn Rouse 23, Ken Hazel 2/23) � Moo­sai won by 37 runs. Man of match: William Perkins.

Mer­ry­boys 70/2 (5) (Shem­roy Bar­ring­ton 29, Mario 22) vs First Cit­i­zens 63/4 (5) (Nicholas Pooran 33) � Mer­ry­boys won by 7 runs. Man of match: Shem­roy Bar­ring­ton.