It was a close call for Bluffuzz but they man­aged to pull off a four-run win over Xmen in the first semi­fi­nal of the Mon­te­co Cre­ations’ Ty­ro Sports 45 and Over Wind­ball T10 Crick­et League on Sat­ur­day.

Bluffuzz brought the ex­cite­ment at the Gab­ba grounds in Bourg Mu­la­tresse in Low­er San­ta Cruz, bat­ting first and post­ing 74/6 off their 10 overs in what turned out to be a thriller.

An­tho­ny Ruiz led the way with 20 while his team­mate Ricky Ram­lakan added 13 for Bluffuzz. Emerg­ing the best bowler for the Xmen was Carl Solomon with 2-11 from his two overs.

In re­ply, Xmen, who was beat­en by Bluffuzz in the open­ing match of the pre­lim­i­nary round by eight wick­ets, showed im­prove­ment in both in­nings but fell short of its tar­get, reach­ing 70/9 as their bats­men were lim­it­ed by the bowl­ing of Richard Morang and Car­lyle Sim­mons, who claimed 2-12 and 2-14 in their re­spec­tive two overs for Bluffuzz, which now moves on to the fi­nal.

Robert "Mag­ic" Brath­waite (20) and Alex Fred­er­icks (14) were the lead­ing bats­men for Xmen who will now await the win­ner of the elim­i­na­tion play­offs to bat­tle for the oth­er place in the fi­nal which is card­ed for Sat­ur­day from 6.30 pm, fol­low­ing the third-place match at 4 pm.

The Big Six quar­ter­fi­nals were sched­uled to play last evening. The win­ners will com­pete to­mor­row for a place in the sec­ond semi­fi­nal, card­ed for the fol­low­ing day against Xmen.

Scores:

Bluffuzz 74/6 (A Ruiz 20, R Ram­lakan 13; C Solomon 2-11) vs Xmen 70/9 (R Brath­waite 20, A Fred­er­icks 14; R Morang 2-12; C Sim­mons 2-14). Bluffuzz won by four runs.