Cen­tral de­feat­ed North at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do by 53 runs to book its place in the fi­nal of the Sco­tia­bank Nex­Gen Un­der-15 tour­na­ment against South East on Wednes­day.

Cen­tral bat­ted first and scored 182/7 off their 50 overs with Luke Ali pro­duc­ing a top-score of 68, while the con­sis­tent Fa­reez Ali looked good be­fore get­ting out at 20. Al­so among the runs was A Ma­hase who stroked 30. The picked of the bowlers were A Ramdeen 2/39 and R Lakhan 2/30. North in re­sponse was re­strict­ed to 129 for nine off their 50 overs, los­ing hand­some­ly to the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons.

At the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC), pre­vi­ous­ly un­beat­en North East fell to South East af­ter an ex­cel­lent per­for­mance from off-spin­ner Chris­t­ian Ram­per­sad. East made just 120 all out as Ram­per­sad grabbed 6/11.

Ra­jeev Ram­golie 25, Joseph Men­doza 24 and Stephan McPher­son 20 all got starts but failed to con­vert as South East took charge un­der the spell by Ram­per­sad. South East then got to vic­to­ry at 124/6 with O Gob­in get­ting 34 and Ram­per­sad com­ing back with the bat to score 32. Ab­dul Top­pin bowled well by tak­ing three wick­ets for 19 runs but in the end, could not save his team.

SCO­TIA NEX­GEN SCORES

At BLCA: Cen­tral 182/7 (50) (Luke Ali 68, A Ma­hase 30, Fa­reez Ali 20, A Ramdeen 2/39, R Lakhan 2/30) vs North 129/9 (50) (N Main­got 45, A Ramdeen 26, U Ab­dool 2/17) - Cen­tral won by 53 runs.

At NCC: North East 120 all out (Ra­jeev Ram­golie 25, Joseph Men­doza 24, Stephan McPher­son 20, Chris­t­ian Ram­per­sad 6/11) vs South East 124/6 (O Gob­in 34, Chris­t­ian Ram­per­sad 32, Ab­dul Top­pin 3/19) - South East won by 4 wk­ts.