Rose Hall Town Thunderbolt Flour will now play Albion Cricket Club in the final of the Berbice Cricket Board Ivan Madray T20 tournament after beating Young Warriors Cricket Club by seven runs in the lone semi-finals on Saturday.
At the Area H Ground, hosts, Thunderbolts won the toss and opted to bat, posting 135-8 in their allotted 20 overs before limiting an experienced Young Warriors side to 128 all out, two balls short of their quota.
After national youth player Junior Sinclair fell in the second over for one, the other top order batsmen provided important cameos to help Thunderbolts along the way.
Opener, Khemraj Mahadeo struck two sixes and one four on his way to 25 while sharing in a 42-run stand with West Indies Under-19 selectee, Kevlon Anderson for the second wicket. Anderson, went on to make 30, inclusive of three boundaries.
But with both batsmen back in the dugout, Jason Sinclair came to the crease to hammer a top score of 34, laced with four fours and one six. Eon Hooper was the only other batsman to reach double figures with 14. Young Warriors’ bowling was led by Kassim Khan and Devindra Ramoutar who took two wickets each for 28 and 17 runs respectively. Linden Austin, Suresh Dhanai and Trevon Stanislaus picked up one wicket each.
In reply, Hooper returned to remove Austin for two while off-spinners, Jonathan Rampersaud and Junior Sinclair removed Stanislaus (07) and Ishwar Singh (10) respectively to leave Young Warriors reeling at 21-3.
However, a 46-run fourth wicket partnership between national youth player, Alex Algoo and Seon Hetmyer kept Young Warriors fighting. The left-handed Algoo smoked two sixes and one four before he was run out on 25 while Hetmyer went on to blast four fours and one six in his top score of 38. Carl Gilgeous tried to bring it home for his side with a spirited 23, decorated with two fours and two sixes batting at eight but fell to Hooper who ended with 2-20.
Anderson made light work of the lower order to return 2-22 with Junior Sinclair (2-39), Keith Simpson (1-15) and Rampersaud (1-9) getting among the wickets.
Thunderbolts will await the announcement of the date for the finals.
