T20 semi-final place up for grabs

Western Bureau:

Broughton CC and Allsides CC will both be eyeing quarter-final round places when they square off in tomorrow's 2011 Social Development Commission's (SDC) National Community Twenty20 Cricket Competition top-of-the-table Zone C clash at Bounty Hall in Trelawny.

The game, which is slated for 10 a.m., will be followed by a 2 p.m. clash between first-round losers Elgin Town and Farm Heights, who are both seeking to play catch-up in the four-team group, which will yield two qualifiers for the competition's quarter-finals.

In the first-round double-header, which was played in Hanover, the Paul Palmer Jr-led Broughton, the Westmoreland champions, defeated their Hanover counterparts Elgin Town by 41 runs in one game, while in the second game, which was cut short by bad weather, Trelawny's Allsides surprised the fancied St James-based Farm Heights by 13 runs.

Based on their clinical demolition of Elgin Town in their first-round game, the powerful Broughton team, with the likes of former national player Cleveland Davidson and Dixieth Palmer, should start favourites against Allsides. However, with home advantage and a tried and proven performer in skipper Oral Rankine, Allsides should give a good account of themselves.

Against Elgin Town, Broughton made 154 all out off 19.3 overs with Vanriel Bloomfield, who top-scored with 51, Denville McKenzie, who got with 26 and skipper Palmer, who got 19, making most runs. In reply, Davidson and fellow spinner Myron Wilson took two wickets each in holding Elgin Town to 114 for six off their 20 overs.

In their game against Farm Heights, which was reduced to 15 overs because of bad light, the Allsides team, behind a top score of 30 from skipper Rankine, made 110. In reply, Farm Heights could only manage 97 for seven off their 15 overs.

In tomorrow's second game between Elgin Town and Farm Heights, both teams will be going all out for a win as defeat would wreck whatever chances they may have of making the quarter-final round. While both teams were not at their best in the first round, they both have the capacity to come good.

Farms Heights, who became St James' champions by virtue of getting the better of the likes of Orange CC, Granville and Kensington CC in the parish play-off, will be banking on skipper Samuel Evans, Tyrone Johnson Deon Dennis and Dalton James. Edgar Plant, Christopher Watson, and all-rounder Gary Campbell will lead Elgin Town's charge.