Vin­ode Mam­chan

T&T let the ad­van­tage slip with­in the last hour of play against the Wind­wards in the Headley/Weekes Re­gion­al Four-day semi­fi­nal match-up at the Queen's Park Oval, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.The weath­er held for the en­tire day af­ter all the rain on Fri­day and a full 90 overs was pos­si­ble.The Red Force en­joyed the good weath­er and bat­tled well be­fore they let it slip to­wards the end of play, los­ing three wick­ets in their re­ply.The lo­cals reached 36 for three at the close, af­ter bowl­ing out the Wind­wards for 246. Im­ran Khan con­tin­ued his fine form with 4/59 as half broth­ers Romell Cur­ren­cy 68 and Sunil Am­bris 44 propped up the vis­i­tors.

Left with 14 overs to play out the day, T&T start­ed their re­ply in fre­net­ic fash­ion with Lendl Sim­mons slam­ming tak­ing the at­tack to the new-ball bowlers.How­ev­er, that care­free at­ti­tude would cost him and T&T as he fell for 19 with the score at 33 and with­out ad­di­tion to the to­tal, Dar­ren Bra­vo guid­ed one from De­lorn John­son to third slip for a "duck."Evin Lewis tai­lored his game to suit the sit­u­a­tion and at the end he was there on ten not out. How­ev­er, with three overs to go, T&T lost an­oth­er wick­et, that of night­watch­man Mar­lon Richards and when play re­sumes to­day, they will be look­ing to re­build and charge to­wards the Wind­wards to­tal.

The day start­ed beau­ti­ful­ly for the home team as De­nesh Ramdin called cor­rect­ly at the toss and af­ter five min­utes um­pire Gre­go­ry Brath­waite was pick­ing up De­von Smith's stumps from the ground.Pac­er Shan­non Gabriel breached his de­fence first ball and Wind­wards lost their main bats­man.Gabriel, who has been bowl­ing very well this sea­son, then claimed the wick­et of West In­dies bats­man John­son Charles soon af­ter to re­duce the Is­landers to 30 for two. Charles was bril­liant­ly caught by Evin Lewis at slip fish­ing out­side the off-stump.Open­er Ty­rone Theophile took the at­tack to the T&T boys and carved out 30 runs be­fore he joined his mates in the dress­ing room, cour­tesy a hor­ri­ble pull shot. Mar­lon Richards short­ened a quick­ish de­liv­ery on him and his at­tempt­ed pull went sky­wards, on­ly for Gabriel to ac­cept the catch at mid-on.

Ked­dy Lesporis joined Am­bris at the crease and they sta­bilised the in­nings by adding 64 runs for the fourth wick­et.Lesporis then left, bowled around his legs by Khan on the stroke of lunch, giv­ing the Comets play­er his 25th of the tour­na­ment. The right han­der's 39 came off 44 balls and in­clud­ed with five fours and one six. Lunch was tak­en im­me­di­ate­ly with the score at 112 for four as T&T got a much need­ed boost be­fore the break.On the re­sump­tion, Ramdin's boys con­tin­ued to progress and the skip­per him­self brought off a won­der­ful run out, when he col­lect­ed a throw from Sim­mons and threw down the stumps from back­ward square leg. The hap­less bats­man was Am­bris, who made 42 off 73 balls in 91 min­utes bat­ting with two fours and two six­es. Skip­per Liam Se­bastien and Cur­ren­cy then joined forces and bat­ted very well to­geth­er. The left hand/right-hand com­bi­na­tion threw off the T&T the bowlers and in very hu­mid con­di­tions, T&T was left to chase leather in the af­ter­noon pe­ri­od.

Cur­ren­cy was pa­tient and put a price to his wick­et, one that T&T was not able to come up with for the sec­ond ses­sion. When the play­ers turned and head­ed for the pavil­ion, the score read 202 for five with Se­bastien 25 not out and Cur­ren­cy 54 not out. He brought up his half cen­tu­ry off 84 balls in 112 min­utes with eight fours.T&T made a great start to the fi­nal ses­sion when Dar­ren Bra­vo took a won­der­ful catch to send back Se­bastien for 40. The stocky Do­mini­can bat­ted for 121 min­utes, ne­go­ti­at­ing 104 balls, four of which he sent over the ropes.Khan was again in the ac­tion soon af­ter, send­ing back top­scor­er cur­ren­cy for 68. He spent 153 min­utes be­tween the sticks in which time he faced 120 balls, hit­ting nine fours. This in­nings formed the back­bone of the Wind­wards in­nings, as Cur­ren­cy hard­ly played across the line. Most of his runs came on the off-side and none of his nine hits to the fence were on the on­side. Three went straight down the ground, one to third man, three to back­ward points and two through cov­ers.Af­ter this it was all down­hill for the vis­i­tors and they fell for 246 - miss­ing out a valu­able bat­ting point. Khan was the pick of the bowlers with 4/59, Gabriel took 2/35 and new­boy Ricky Jaipaul 2/34.

SCORE­BOARD

TT vs Wind­wards

Wind­wards Inns

D Smith b Gabriel 0

T Theophille c Gabriel b Richards 30

J Charles c Evin b Gabriel 8

S Am­bris run out 42

K Lesporis b Khan 39

R Cur­ren­cy lbw Khan 68

L Se­bastien c Bra­vo b Khan 40

M Matthew c Lewis b Khan 3

K Pe­ters c Khan b Jaipaul 5

D John­son c Bra­vo b Jaipaul 8

N Pas­cal not out 0

Ex­tras: lb3 3

To­tal: all out 248

Fall of wk­ts: 0, 30, 49, 112, 136, 226, 235, 240, 242, 248.

Bowl­ing: S Gabriel 11-0-2-35-2, R Em­rit 11-1-42-0, M Richards 7-0-30-1, A Ho­sein 7-0-29-0, I Khan 17-2-59-4, R Jaipaul 17.4-6-34-2, J Mo­hammed 3-0-16-0.

T&T 1st inns

L Sim­mons c Math­ew b John­son 19

E Lewis not out 10

D Bra­vo c Lesporis b John­son 0

M Richards c Theophile b Se­bastien 2

J Mo­hammed not out 0

Ex­tras: lb5 5

To­tal: for 3 wk­ts 36

Fall of wk­ts: 33, 33, 36.

Bowl­ing: N Pas­cal 2-0-18-0, D John­son 5-2-10-2, K Pe­ters 3-1-2-0, L Se­bastien 2-1-1-1, M Math­ew 2-2-0-0.