On Tues­day, an un­beat­en half-cen­tu­ry from Narad Kissoon­dath, and four wick­ets from na­tion­al pac­er Uth­man Muham­mad, helped Pow­er­gen Pe­nal book its place in the semi­fi­nals against Queen’s Park II. Forty-eight hours lat­er, it was the bat­ting pair of right-hand open­er Ewart Nichol­son and all-rounder Ja­son Mo­hammed who guid­ed them to the fi­nal of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) T20 Fes­ti­val to be played at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va on Fri­day, against de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Queen’s Park Crick Club (QPCC) I from 3 pm.

Chas­ing 158 for vic­to­ry in the first of two semi­fi­nals at the NCC in Bal­main, Cou­va, yes­ter­day, Pow­er­gen Pe­nal got off to a shaky start when it lost two wick­ets for 42 runs with the open­ers Narad Kissoon­dath (12 off 17) and Videsh Sookha (10 off 8) back in the dress­ing room.

The pair of Nichol­son and Mo­hammed, a West In­dies play­er, then re­paired the in­nings with a 59-run part­ner­ship in six overs be­fore Nichol­son lost his wick­et when he was bowled by Jahron Al­fred for 54 runs af­ter he faced 32 balls. He took 31 balls to score his fifty and fin­ished with five fours and three six­es. Mo­hammed then carved out a sec­ond part­ner­ship with pac­er Uth­man Muhammed for 37 runs be­fore Muham­mad was lbw to medi­um-pac­er Mar­lon Richards for 14.

Mo­hammed then stayed un­til the end for 47 runs off 34 balls and he sent six balls to the bound­ary as Pow­er­gen Pe­nal close out the vic­to­ry on 161 for 6 off 18.3 overs and was named Play­er of the Match for his bat­ting ef­fort.

Al­fred fin­ished with two for 28 from three overs and Richards al­so took two for 25 of 3.3 overs.

Ear­li­er, Cen­tral Sports could not have asked for a bet­ter start from their open­ers Kjorn Ot­t­ley, who scored an un­beat­en cen­tu­ry (101) against Ale­scon Comets on May 9, and wick­et­keep­er/bats­man Daniel Williams, who put on 90 runs for the first wick­et that of Williams, who scored his first half-cen­tu­ry (56) of the tour­na­ment off 31 balls with three fours and five six­es. Ot­t­ley, the team cap­tain, was the sec­ond wick­et to fall for 42 off 35 balls af­ter af­fect­ing two four and two six­es.

For­mer West In­dies play­er Lendl Sim­mons, who was seek­ing to dis­cov­er the form he dis­played in the first match of the pre­lim­i­nary round with an un­beat­en 60 against Vic­to­ria, a week ago, scored 15 off 19 balls with­out a bound­ary.

Then in the 17th over Muham­mad found bowl­ing very dif­fi­cult when he de­liv­ered a 13-ball over (wd, wd, wd, wd, wd, 1, w, 1, w, 1, wd, wd, 1).

Cen­tral failed to take ad­van­tage of the sit­u­a­tion as the team’s next sev­en wick­ets fell for 29 runs as they limped to 157/9 in their 20 Overs.

For Pow­er­gen Pe­nal, medi­um-pac­er Jar­larnie Seales, 24, took three overs for 23 runs off his al­lot­ted four overs and Muham­mad played a vi­tal role with three wick­ets for 35 runs from his four overs.

Cari­ah, Ho­sein bowl QPCC I in­to fi­nal

Right-arm leg spin­ner Yan­nic Cari­ah and left-arm or­tho­dox spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein shared sev­en wick­ets be­tween them as Queen’s Park Crick­et Club (QPCC) I team re­strict­ed Clarke Road Unit­ed to 86 for 9 in 20 overs and then coast­ed to the vic­to­ry tar­get of 87 for one wick­et in 6.2 overs in the sec­ond semi­fi­nal on Thurs­day to se­cure their place in to­day’s fi­nal.

QPCC cap­tain Khary Pierre won the toss and de­cid­ed to field, a de­ci­sion that ap­peared to be in the favour of the op­po­si­tion who reached 39 runs be­fore los­ing its first wick­et that of open­er De­journ Charles for eight.

Then 14 runs lat­er Tariq Mo­hammed de­part­ed for five. How­ev­er, af­ter that QPCC I bowlers took full con­trol of the match as Clarke Road’s bats­men were head­ing to and from the pavil­ion in very quick suc­ces­sion.

In the 14th over Cari­ah worked his spin-web and took a hat-trick of wick­ets—Ker­wyn Sir­ju (5), Joshua James (0) and Justin Gan­goo (0). The first two balls of his over went for two sin­gles and the fi­nal ball was a duck ball.

Cap­tain Nicholas Sookdeosingh, who record­ed un­beat­en scores of 84 against Cen­tral Sports and 87 against Vic­to­ria to­geth­er with his 40 against Ale­scon Comets in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, scored 41 more runs off 43 balls with six fours.

Cari­ah fin­ished with four wick­ets for 16 runs from his al­lot­ted four overs was named Play­er Of The Match, and Ho­sein took three for sev­en al­so from four overs.

In re­sponse, QPCC I open­ers Tion Web­ster and Isa­iah Ra­jah put on 52 for the first wick­et be­fore Ra­jah was bowled by Joshua James for 28 off 15 balls with five fours. West In­dies top-or­der bats­man Dar­ren Bra­vo, who had two pre­vi­ous half-cen­turies of 55 and 52, joined Web­ster and they closed out the run chase with 28 runs each tak­ing their team over the line with the score on 87 for 1 in 6.2 overs.

SUM­MARISE SCORES

CEN­TRAL SPORTS 157/9 (20 Overs) (D. Williams 56, K. Ot­t­ley 42, L. Sim­mons 15, J. Al­fred 10; J. Seales 3/23, U. Mo­ham­mad 3/35) vs POW­ER­GEN PE­NAL 161/6 (18.3 Overs) (E. Nichol­son 54, J. Mo­hammed 47, U. Muham­mad 14, V. Sookha 10; M. Richards 2/25, J. Al­fred 2/28). Pow­er­gen Pe­nal won by 4 wick­ets.

CLARKE ROAD UNIT­ED 86/9 (20 Overs) (N. Sookdeosingh 41; Y. Cari­ah 4/16, A. Ho­sein 3/7) vs QPCC I 87/1 (6.2 Overs) (T. Web­ster 28, D. Bra­vo 28, I. Ra­jah 24). QPCC I won by 9 wick­ets.