Vin­ode Mam­chan

Dwayne Bra­vo played the in­nings of his life last night, strik­ing 55 runs off 20 balls but even this could not help T&T, as they went un­der to Guyana by four runs in the first of semi­fi­nals of the re­gion­al T20 crick­et se­ries at the Queen's Park Oval. Scores: Guyana 175/7 (19) vs T&T 171 all out (18.5). The old say­ing of 'catch­es win match­es' came back to haunt T&T, as they dropped five catch­es in Guyana's im­pres­sive in­nings off 175 for sev­en. Then, their top or­der failed to fire, as the Guyana's slow bowlers proved too much. With 72 runs need­ed from five overs, the game looked well and tru­ly lost for T&T. Pol­lard was back in the 'dug out' for 15 and Adri­an Barath who bat­ted beau­ti­ful­ly in scor­ing 55 off 44 balls had al­ready gone.

How­ev­er, Dwayne Bra­vo brought the 14,000 fans to life as he took 27 runs from Chris Barn­well in one over. Soon it was down to 30 need­ed from two overs and Bra­vo took 16 runs but fell in the last ball of the penul­ti­mate over. He end­ed on 55 off 20 balls with one four and six mas­sive six­es. With 14 need­ed off the fi­nal over, De­nesh Ramdin start­ed with a four and things were look­ing good for T&T, how­ev­er, two fur­ther wick­ets fell and skip­per Daren Gan­ga and his broth­er Sher­win were left to get five runs from the fi­nal two balls. How­ev­er, Roys­ton Cran­don trapped Gan­ga, the T&T skip­per leg be­fore to leave Guyana vic­tors by four runs.

Ear­li­er, a pa­thet­ic dis­play by T&T in the field al­lowed Guyana to tal­ly a hand­some 175 for sev­en off their 19 overs. Open­ers Travis Dowl­in and Siew­nar­ine Chat­ter­goon came out like men pos­sessed and sent that white ball fly­ing to all parts of the ground. The left hand­ed Chat­ter­goon was se­vere on any­thing out­side off stump and slammed two six­es and four fours off in his 36 that came off just 24 de­liv­er­ies. Dowl­in end­ed with 59 off 39 balls with two fours and four hits over the ropes. Esaun Cran­don al­so chipped in with a 30-ball 30 that in­clud­ed one six and two fours. And to­wards the end Chris Barn­well and Jonathon Foo both played lit­tle cameos in scor­ing 14 each. The sit­u­a­tion could have been worse for T&T but Pol­lard bowled well to­wards the end and fin­ished with four for 31. T&T will now bat­tle for third place to­day in the first match at 4 pm.