Evin Lewis’ first fail­ure with the bat came at a cost as Clarke Road Unit­ed de­feat­ed Bess Mo­tors Marchin Pa­tri­ots by three wick­ets at the Queen’s Park Oval to ad­vance to the fi­nal of the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) T20 fes­ti­val on Fri­day night.

Clarke Road will face Queen’s Park CC who de­feat­ed Pow­er­gen in the sec­ond semi­fi­nal at the same venue. The fi­nal was sched­uled for Sat­ur­day night.

Lewis, who scored a cen­tu­ry and two fifties in the pre­vi­ous four match­es in the pre­lim­i­nary round, came to the semi­fi­nals with 41 be­ing his low­est score of the tour­na­ment.

Clarke Road re­joiced in the sec­ond over when the West In­dies left-hand­ed open­er was caught by An­to­nio Gomez for just 13 with the score on 20 af­ter the Pa­tri­ots de­cid­ed to bat first. Lewis had al­ready ig­nit­ed with two six­es and was look­ing threat­en­ing be­fore pac­er Shi­va Sankar got his wick­et.

Kadeem Al­leyne (31), who al­so came to the match with a bit of form, hav­ing scored a hun­dred ear­li­er in the tour­na­ment, was the sec­ond bats­man to fall (at 63 for two), af­ter a 43-run part­ner­ship with Teshawn Cas­tro (21), be­fore Cas­tro him­self was dis­missed at 78 for three in the eighth over.

The March­ing Pa­tri­ots got steady con­tri­bu­tions from their bats­men de­spite none of them stand­ing out with a fifty. Al­leyne’s 31 was the high­est con­tri­bu­tion, while his part­ner­ship with Cas­tro was the biggest part­ner­ship. They got fur­ther con­tri­bu­tions from Crys­t­ian Thur­ton (29), Kirstan Kallicha­ran (21), Ra­jeev Ram­nath (15), Gio­vante De­peiza (16) and Ri­val­do Ram­lo­gan (13). Marchin Pa­tri­ots closed their 20 overs on 171 for nine.

Pac­er Clevon ‘Ba­by’ Kalawan was their best bowler as he took four wick­ets from his four overs that cost 27 runs.

Mark Deyal got three wick­ets in sup­port.

Clarke Road start­ed with a 30-run part­ner­ship be­tween Nicholas Sookdeosingh (23) and bats­man Shi­an Brath­waite (55) in just two overs and four balls. Af­ter a 20-run part­ner­ship be­tween Brath­waite and Sha­trughan Ram­ber­an (12), Mark Deyal joined the Bar­ba­di­an, and to­geth­er they put on a 104-run part­ner­ship (154 for 3) to set the Pe­nal pow­er­house firm­ly in con­trol, and they need­ed just 18 runs in three overs to com­plete the vic­to­ry.

They stut­tered from there and lost four fur­ther wick­ets as the Pa­tri­ots fought back, de­ter­mined not to give up, know­ing a place in the fi­nal was still pos­si­ble. Mark Deyal (54), Vikash Mo­han (2), An­der­son Ma­hase (1), and Clevon Kalawan (1) were all out in the space of 13 runs, but cap­tain Yan­nick Ot­t­ley (8 not out) and An­to­nio Gomez (4 not out) saw to it that Clarke Road got to 174 for sev­en and earned the right to face Queen’s Park in Sat­ur­day’s fi­nal, as they won with three balls to spare.

Sum­marised Scores

Marchin Pa­tri­ots 171 /9 (20 overs)(Kadeem Al­leyne 31; Crys­t­ian Thur­ton 29; Teshawn Cat­sro 21; Clevon Kalawan 4-27; Mark Deyal 3-39) vs

Clarke Road 174 /7 (Shi­an Brath­waite 55; Mark Deyal 54; Ri­val­do Ram­lo­gan 3-20). Clarke Road won by 3 wick­ets.

Pow­er­gen 132 /7 (20 overs) (Navin Bidaisee 46; Daniel Williams 23; Ter­rence Hinds 2-20; Akeal Ho­sein 2-22) vs Queen’s Park 133 /4 (15.2 overs) (An­dre Fletch­er 40; Joshua Da Sil­va 35; Navin Bidaisee 2-29). Queen’s Park won by 6 wick­ets.