BRIDGETOWN–Ja­maica will at­tempt to thwart ram­pant Bar­ba­dos' charge to­wards yet an­oth­er ti­tle, when they two teams meet in the semi­fi­nal of the Headley/Weekes Tro­phy in Bar­ba­dos to­day.More im­por­tant­ly, the Ja­maicans will look to sal­vage their Re­gion­al first class sea­son which saw them un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly fin­ish fourth in the WICB Pres­i­dent's Tro­phy, and se­cure their spot in the fi­nal four of the Headley/Weekes Tro­phy on­ly in the last pre­lim­i­nary round of match­es last week.They start­ed the com­pe­ti­tion strong­ly, win­ning their first two match­es but then ca­pit­u­lat­ed to lose three in a row and find them­selves in fifth spot in the stand­ings, and in dan­ger of miss­ing out on the semi­fi­nals.

Ja­maica cap­tain Tamar Lam­bert said their vic­to­ry in the last round over Com­bined Cam­pus­es and Col­leges (CCC), how­ev­er, had giv­en his side good im­pe­tus go­ing in­to the semi­fi­nal at Kens­ing­ton Oval."We've al­ways have good char­ac­ter in our side. We have some se­nior play­ers with some young­sters. It's al­ways good to find our­selves in an­oth­er semi­fi­nal and hope­ful­ly we can play four good days of crick­et against Bar­ba­dos," Lam­bert said Good Fri­day (yes­ter­day) as Ja­maica pulled in a fi­nal train­ing ses­sion."A win is al­ways a good thing, hav­ing lost three games in a row. It's a long time I haven't lost three games for Ja­maica in one sea­son so it's al­ways nice to get back to our win­ning ways and try and lift up our con­fi­dence go­ing in­to the game against Bar­ba­dos and we're look­ing for­ward to it."

When the two sides met dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son, it was Bar­ba­dos who pre­vailed, with a con­vinc­ing 245-run vic­to­ry at Sabi­na Park.Lam­bert is hope­ful the Ja­maicans can ex­act re­venge for that loss, though he says it will not be in the fore­front of their minds over the next few days."Play­ing for your coun­try is mo­ti­va­tion in it­self. Every time I step on a field I rep­re­sent my coun­try and I al­ways give and in this game I won't be giv­ing less," Lam­bert said."It is a very im­por­tant game for us and im­por­tant game for our coun­try. We know Bar­ba­dos are de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons. They got the bet­ter of us in Ja­maica but I thought they played the bet­ter crick­et in Ja­maica. We want to come here and re­al­ly put up a good show against them and hope­ful­ly we can come out on top."

Lam­bert ad­mits Ja­maica's bat­ting has let them down this sea­son. Carl­ton Baugh has been their lead­ing bats­man with 367 runs at av­er­age of 45 and though Nkrumah Bon­ner (326) and open­er John Camp­bell (319) have both scored over 300 runs, they have av­er­aged less than 28.Left-arm spin­ner Niki­ta Miller (26 wick­ets) and fast bowler Jerome Tay­lor (21) have led the bowl­ing de­part­ment, and Lam­bert hopes the re­turn of all-rounder David Bernard Jr from in­jury, will lift the side against Bar­ba­dos."We will wel­come back Bernie know­ing the stan­dard he has set over the years, bowl­ing wise and bat­ting wise, so he's a wel­come ad­di­tion to the squad and I'm re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to hav­ing him in here," said Lam­bert.

Bar­ba­dos, mean­while, will be look­ing to add the Headley/Weekes Tro­phy to their im­pres­sive col­lec­tion this sea­son. They opened the year by cap­tur­ing the Re­gion­al Su­per50 and fol­lowed up last week by win­ning the WICB Pres­i­dent's Tro­phy.The hosts lost their open­ing game of the se­ries to Wind­ward Is­lands but then played un­beat­en and cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite likes his side's form head­ing in­to the semi­fi­nals."It shows we have fight. We start­ed out with a loss to Wind­wards and we knew we fell short. The bat­ting didn't click in that game but once the bat­ting came to­geth­er I know the team would do quite well," Brath­waite said."It (win­ning streak) was quite im­por­tant. Car­ry­ing this mo­men­tum in­to the semi­fi­nals would be bet­ter for the team. As a team, both the bats­men and bowlers are go­ing in with con­fi­dence.

"Ob­vi­ous­ly they (Ja­maica) won't be easy op­po­si­tion. We are ready for it but we're not go­ing to take them light­ly or un­der­es­ti­mate them. We're go­ing to come and work hard and play at our best."Brath­waite has led by ex­am­ple with 424 runs and Kirk Ed­wards, Omar Phillips and Ash­ley Nurse have all al­so av­er­aged over 40. Spin­ners Ash­ley Nurse (30 wick­ets) and Sulie­man Benn (29) have been at the fore­front of Bar­ba­dos' at­tack. (CMC)