De­fend­ing cham­pi­on T&T Red Force and Bar­ba­dos Pride will re­new their ri­val­ry Wednes­day af­ter­noon from 1 pm at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba in the first semi­fi­nal of the CG Unit­ed Re­gion­al Su­per 50 Cup.

The match-up has brought a lot of en­thu­si­asm to both camps as they bat­tle for a spot in Sat­ur­day’s fi­nal against ei­ther Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons or the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes.

T&T will be with­out the ser­vices of Joshua Da Sil­va who has been called up to the West In­dies team for the Test se­ries against Bangladesh start­ing on Fri­day, but Ter­rence Hinds is back from West In­dies T20 du­ty against Eng­land.

Khary Pierre has been el­e­vat­ed to cap­tain and is buoy­ant af­ter the home team’s dom­i­nant win over the Bar­ba­di­ans on Sat­ur­day.

“The mood is great, the boys are ready to go,” Pierre said. “It’s a fam­i­ly at­mos­phere all the time when you play for Trinidad and To­ba­go. It’s just about go­ing out there on the day, be­ing pro­fes­sion­al and go­ing out there and ex­e­cut­ing.”

In ad­di­tion to Da Sil­va, An­der­son Phillip is al­so in An­tigua with the Test team as the Red Force wel­comed back Hinds while Daniel Williams has been giv­en his call-up for Da Sil­va, al­though the in-form Amir Jan­goo, who has been play­ing as a spe­cial­ist bats­man in the pres­ence of Da Sil­va, is ex­pect­ed to don the gloves for the Red Force.

Bar­ba­dos, how­ev­er, will have to do with­out Kyle May­ers who has left the camp to line up with Team Abu Dhabi in the Abu Dhabi T10 League.

Cap­tain Ray­mond Riefer, though, is con­fi­dent Bar­ba­dos can turn the re­sult around from their loss to the home team last week.

“They got the bet­ter of us in the play­off (group stage), hope­ful­ly we can come here to­mor­row (to­day) and get over the line,” Riefer said. “Ob­vi­ous­ly it’s a big game over the years, it’s been a big ri­val­ry. So we’re def­i­nite­ly look­ing for­ward to hav­ing a good game of crick­et to­mor­row (to­day).”

May­ers has con­tributed 178 runs at an av­er­age of 29.66 in the tour­na­ment, and de­spite his ab­sence, Reifer feels Bar­ba­dos has the play­ers, who can step up.

“If you look at our team, it wasn’t just one or two guys per­form­ing. Guys have been per­form­ing right through­out the sea­son at dif­fer­ent times. I know the guys will def­i­nite­ly be look­ing for­ward to tak­ing that with both hands,” said Reifer.

Pierre is hop­ing to get a lo­cal boost as he is call­ing on the sup­port of the home fans for the show­down.

“We are call­ing on the peo­ple of T&T to come and sup­port us to­mor­row (to­day). It’s im­por­tant that 12th man, the crowd plays a big part in us win­ning. So come out and sup­port us.”

The first ball is at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my is 1 pm.

T&T Red Force squad:

Khary Pierre (cap­tain), Shan­non Gabriel, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Kjorn Ot­t­ley, Yan­nic Cari­ah, Bryan Charles, Mark Deyal, Jyd Goolie, Amir Jan­goo (wick­et­keep­er), Isa­iah Ra­jah, Tion Web­ster, Ter­rance Hinds, Joshua James, Daniel Williams (wick­et­keep­er).

CG Unit­ed Su­per 50 Semi­fi­nals

At BCLA

Wednes­day

T&T Red Force vs Bar­ba­dos Pride, 1 pm

Thurs­day

Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons vs Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes, 1 pm