RAIPUR - The West In­dies Mas­ters de­liv­ered a work­man­like per­for­mance to se­cure a thrilling six-run vic­to­ry over the Sri Lan­ka Mas­ters in the semi­fi­nal of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ters League (IML) in In­dia on Fri­day.

A com­posed half-cen­tu­ry by De­nesh Ramdin, cou­pled with a vin­tage 41 from Bri­an Lara, and a fiery four-wick­et haul by Tino Best were the high­lights as the Caribbean side booked their place in the fi­nal, where they will face the for­mi­da­ble In­dia Mas­ters.

Bat­ting first, the West In­dies Mas­ters post­ed a com­pet­i­tive to­tal of 179-5, thanks large­ly to a late surge from Ramdin, who re­mained un­beat­en on 50 which came off 22 balls with four fours and three six­es.

Things did not start out the best for the re­gion­al men, who lost pro­lif­ic open­er Dwayne Smith, who was run out with­out scor­ing af­ter fac­ing just one ball. The tour­na­ment’s sec­ond-high­est run-scor­er, Lendl Sim­mons, hit a four and six to get to 17, but he be­came the sec­ond wick­et to fall in the 7th over with the score on 44.

Open­er Williams Perkins al­so got a start af­ter hit­ting four bound­aries, but he fell in the 8th over at 48 for three. Chad­wick Wal­ton al­so got amongst the runs by scor­ing a brisk 31, but when he was dis­missed in the 14th over, the West In­dies Mas­ters were in a spot of both­er at 108 for four.

A classy knock of 41 from cap­tain Lara helped to spruce up the score, but some swash­buck­ling hit­ting was need­ed and the skip­per de­cid­ed to re­tire out with an over to go.

The Sri Lan­ka Mas­ters bowlers put up a dis­ci­plined ef­fort, but Ramdin’s ex­plo­sive fin­ish en­sured the West In­dies had mo­men­tum head­ing in­to the sec­ond in­nings.

In re­sponse, Sri Lan­ka Mas­ters strug­gled to build part­ner­ships as Tino Best wreaked hav­oc with the ball, claim­ing 4-27 in a match-defin­ing spell.

Best worked up some steam to re­move Up­ul Tha­ranga for 30, Lahiru Thi­r­i­manne for 9, Jee­van Mendis for 4 and Dil­ruwan Per­era for 11 to peg back the Sri Lankans run chase.

De­spite a valiant ef­fort from the Is­landers, they fell short, fin­ish­ing at 173-9 in their 20 overs with Asela Gu­naratne top-scor­ing with 66.

Best fin­ished with 4-27 while Smith weighed in with two wick­ets for 37 runs.

The West In­dies Mas­ters will now take on Sachin Ten­dulkar’s In­dia Mas­ters in the fi­nal, set to be played on Sun­day at the Sha­heed Veer Narayan Singh In­ter­na­tion­al Sta­di­um.

CMC