Reinal­do Sam­my and Iqwe Craig both scored 33 runs which helped Mer­ry Boys to its fourth con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ry in the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) T20 Fes­ti­val at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va on Wednes­day.

The Diego Mar­tin-based team de­feat­ed HKL Aranguez by three wick­ets to book their place in to­mor­row’s Pre­mier Di­vi­sion II fi­nal against Pris­ons who whipped Cal­drac by nine runs in the first se­mi-fi­nal en­counter at the same venue.

Chas­ing 113 for vic­to­ry and to keep their un­beat­en streak of 11 match­es go­ing for the sea­son, Mer­ry Boys stum­bled ear­ly when their cap­tain Mario Bel­con was caught and bowled by Ash­meed Mo­hammed af­ter he faced just two balls. But the run chase was back on track when Sam­my and Craig com­bined for 49 runs be­fore Sam­my lost his wick­et to be­come the first of Aamir Ali’s three vic­tims. His in­nings com­prised five fours and one six.

Tris­ton Singh then had Craig caught by Andy Ma­hase at­tempt­ing his sixth six down at the mid-wick­et bound­ary.

With one run need­ed for vic­to­ry, Frankly Rouse was caught and bowled by Ash­meer Mo­hammed for 32 which in­clud­ed six fours and wick­et­keep­er Samuel Fe­lix fin­ished un­beat­en on 13 to close the in­ning on 116/7 off 17.2 overs.

Bowl­ing for Aranguex, left-arm Or­tho­dox slow bowler Ali took 3-13 off his four over-spell, and Mo­hammed took 2-6 from his three overs.

Ear­li­er, Aranguez took the first knock to set a chal­leng­ing to­tal for an op­po­si­tion that had a deep bat­ting line­up. The team had a de­cent start with 34 runs on the board be­fore their open­ing bats­man Randy Ma­hase was re­moved for 29 off 20 balls af­ter he clob­bered three fours and two six­es by Rouse and 15 runs lat­er, Rouse al­so ac­count­ed for Leonar­do Fran­cis’ wick­et for sev­en runs.

Aranguex lost wick­ets at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals with Kaleem Fe­lix (17), Mal­colm Ram­lo­gan, the cap­tain (11), and Andy Ma­hase (10) be­ing the on­ly oth­er play­ers to reach dou­ble fig­ures as they com­piled 112 runs off their al­lot­ted 20 Overs.

Bowl­ing for Mer­ry Boys, Rouse fin­ished with 3-15 from his four overs and An­tho­ny Ser­rette took 2-16 off two overs.

 In the first match, Cal­drac cap­tain Ne­gus Carthy won the toss and in­vit­ed Pris­ons to bat and they made the best of the op­por­tu­ni­ty with open­er Za­ck­ery Ra­goonath scor­ing 53 runs off 39 balls with eight fours and one six, skip­per Bryan Boodram scored 41 off 22 balls with five fours and two six­es bat­ting at num­ber five, and Alex Ali scored 13 off nine balls that in­clud­ed one six that helped their team to post 149/8 off 20 overs.  

For­mer T&T Un­der-15 play­er Nathaniel Mc­David and right-arm off-break bowler Avinash Ma­habirs­ingh took two wick­ets each for 23 and 12 runs, re­spec­tive­ly.

In re­sponse, Cal­drac came up nine runs short af­ter four play­ers, Quin Badel top-scored with 39 off 40 balls with just two four and two six­es, open­er Gabriel Black­well was stumped for 29 af­ter three fours and one six, Varin­da Ma­haraj scored a run a ball 24 and sent three of his strokes to the bound­ary and Avinash Ma­habirs­ingh scored 13 in the to­tal of 140/8 in their 20 overs.

Bowlers, Vikash Ram­per­sad and Bryan Boos­ram and Jerve Cum­mings took two wick­ets each.

The ti­tle de­cider be­tween Mer­ry Boys and Pris­ons will be played to­mor­row at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va from 11 am. The win­ner will pock­et $40,000 and the sec­ond-placed team gets $20,000, The los­ing se­mi-fi­nal­ists will each col­lect $10,000.

Over­all win­ners of the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion I cham­pi­on team will col­lect $80,000 with $40,000 go­ing to the run­ners-up. Los­ing se­mi-fi­nal­ists will get $15,000 each.

SUM­MARISE SCORES

PRIS­ONS SPORTS CLUB 149/8 (20 overs) (Z Ra­goonath 53, B Boodram 41, A Ali 13; N Mc David 2-23, A Ma­habirs­ingh 2-12) vs CAL­DRAC SPORTS 140/8 (20 overs) (Q Badel 39, G Black­well 29, V Ma­haraj 24, A Ma­habirs­ingh 13; B Boodram 2-16, V Ram­per­sad 2-27). Pris­ons won by nine runs.

HKL ARANGUEZ SC 112 all­out (20 overs) (R Ma­hase 29, K Fe­lix 17, M Ram­lo­gan 11, A Ma­hase 10; F Rouse 3-15, A Ser­rette 2-16) vs MER­RY BOYS 116/7 (17.2 overs) (R Sam­my 33, I Craig 33, F Rouse 32, S Fe­lix 13 no; Aamir Ali 3-13, A Mo­hammed 2-6). Mer­ry­Boys won by three wick­ets.