There will be ex­tra mo­ti­va­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force and Guyana Harpy Ea­gles to play hard in the first se­mi-fi­nal of the West In­dies Su­per50 Cup at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do on Wednes­day.

Red Force end­ed the pre­lim­i­nary phase of the tour­na­ment on top of the stand­ings with 49 points and did not lose any of their sev­en match­es, en­dur­ing on­ly a washout in their first match, while Harpy Ea­gles fin­ished fourth with 34 points, squeak­ing in­to the se­mi-fi­nals ahead of the West In­dies Acad­e­my by on­ly one point.

It is against this back­drop, and a 114-run win for Red Force dur­ing the pre­lims at the same venue that the two teams en­ter this day-night con­test, and the home team has been in­stalled as the rag­ing hot favourites to win it all.

For Red Force, there are sev­er­al rea­sons for them to come out on top, in­clud­ing reach­ing the fi­nal on home soil, try­ing to win their 14th ti­tle, and giv­ing mer­cu­r­ial off-spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine a mem­o­rable send-off af­ter he an­nounced his re­tire­ment from play­ing in­ter­na­tion­al and List A One-Day match­es this past Sun­day.

“I think the tour­na­ment has been pret­ty de­cent for us so far,” Red Force cap­tain Dar­ren Bra­vo said.

“As a team, we would have put in a lot of work lead­ing up to the tour­na­ment, so it’s pleas­ing to see the per­for­mances of every one.

“As a team, we are qui­et­ly con­fi­dent go­ing in­to the se­mi-fi­nals. We know over the years, the Harpy Ea­gles are al­ways a force to reck­on with, but we are ready and look­ing for­ward to the chal­lenge. I think the be­lief and to­geth­er­ness with­in our dress­ing room are spe­cial.

“As a team, we are fo­cus­ing on what we have to do and not wor­ry­ing too much about the op­po­si­tion. So, so far we have been tick­ing the right box­es, and we will con­tin­ue to do so un­til the very last ball.”

All-rounder Akeal Ho­sein feels con­fi­dent for him­self and his team head­ing in­to the se­mi-fi­nals to­day.

“I think we’re pret­ty con­fi­dent. We’ve been play­ing good crick­et and we’re stick­ing to­geth­er, so we’re pret­ty con­fi­dent head­ing in­to this se­mi-fi­nals,” said Ho­sein.

For Harpy Ea­gles, this se­mi-fi­nal is a chance to prove the loss ear­li­er in the tour­na­ment was a blip on the radar, and it will be an im­por­tant step to­wards end­ing their 18-year ti­tle drought.

In ad­di­tion, the Harpy Ea­gles are hop­ing that they can com­plete the dou­ble of the West In­dies Cham­pi­onship and Su­per50 ti­tles, and teams from Guyana could sweep all three ma­jor ti­tles in a sin­gle cal­en­dar year with the Ama­zon War­riors fran­chise hav­ing won the Caribbean Pre­mier League Twen­ty20 ti­tle this past Sep­tem­ber.

“We have had our ups and downs,” Harpy Ea­gles head coach Ryan Her­cules said. “We did not see our bat­ing come to the fore­front re­al­ly un­til the last match against the Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons when it was much need­ed.

“The most im­por­tant thing was try­ing to reach the se­mi-fi­nals, which we did, and any­one would take that as a plus. We know our bat­ting has not been at its best, and at times, some of our ‘death bowl­ing’—with­out Ro­mario Shep­herd—has let us down.”

He said, “But I am pret­ty con­fi­dent know­ing that in the last match we played we had a con­vinc­ing win against the Scor­pi­ons. Some of the guys found some form … Once we stick to­geth­er as a unit, and play smart­ly, and ex­e­cute, any­thing is pos­si­ble.

“It will be about work­ing the match-ups and ac­cord­ing to plans that will be key to get­ting 10 wick­ets and re­strict­ing them for as low as pos­si­ble. In the field, we have to go out there and give it our all from the first ball to the last to set the en­er­gy to get ahead and stay ahead. In the bat­ting, it will be about get­ting de­cent part­ner­ships and cre­at­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for our mid­dle or­der to go there and play some at­tack­ing crick­et.”

The sec­ond se­mi-fi­nal, an­oth­er day-night con­test, be­tween Hur­ri­canes and Pride will be played at on Thurs­day at the same venue, where­as the day-night fi­nal will be con­test­ed on Sat­ur­day.

All two se­mi-fi­nals and the fi­nal start at 1 pm lo­cal time. (CMC)