Manchester and Melbourne Cricket Club advanced to the final of the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) one-day champioinship yesterday, after easy five-wicket wins over Kensington and St Catherine Cricket Club, respectively.

At Kensington Oval, the home side, playing without their stars, David Bernard Jr., Wavell Hinds, Daren Powell and Akeem Dewar (West Indies Under-19) - who are all in Guyana for the West Indies Cricket Board one-day regional competition, made a decent 202 all out in 44.2 overs. The top three batsmen, Ranville Brown 76, Ryan Francis 38 and Rasheed Outar 29, gave Kensington a rousing start and were well placed at 126-1. But, wickets fell at regular intervals and they were once reeling at 162-6, before making a slight recovery to post a total just above 200.

Four bowlers, Jamie Merchant (2-27), David Powell (2-33), Krishmar Santokie (2-37), and Donovan Sinclair (2-48) combined for eight wickets for Manchester.

In reply, Manchester had a shaky start, as they slipped to 23-3. However, a 99-run partnership between captain Gary Graham 80 not out and Zeniffe Fowler 59, resurrected the innings, to 122-3, when Fowler went lbw to Kensington's most successful bowler, Clayton Boreland, who finished on 3-39 in 10 overs. The team then coasted to 204-5 in 48 overs.

happy with the batting

Manchester's coach, Bertram Barnes said he was happy with the batting, and that gave them the victory.

"I thought we batted well and that allowed us to win today but our bowling let us down this morning."

He added: "I want to congratulate Kensington for playing a good match."

Kensington's coach, Roy Welsh, was not too perturbed by the loss.

"The fielding was not up to standard today. Otherwise we played well, I'm not too disappointed with the loss, we had a young team out there and they handled themselves well. Some of our senior players were unavailable and the young players really lifted their game today."

In the other semi-final at Chedwin Park, in St Catherine, Melbourne made light work of St Catherine CC's imposing total of 274-6 off their allotted 50 overs, by smashing 275-5 in 46.5 overs. Melbourne's victory was achieved with 19 balls to spare and hinged on a big 172-run opening partnership by John Ross Campbell, who hit a topscore of 81, and Damion Henry's 79 (retired hurt). Damion Jacobs was not out at the end with 45, while, Omar Allison chipped in with 46.

Dean Morgan 3-54, off 10 overs, had the best figures, for St Catherine.

St Catherine's captain, Tamar Lambert, who was surprisingly left out of Jamaica's Senior team for the WICB's one-day regional tournament, made an even 100 in a losing effort. Damion Bryce, 50, and Andre Russell 30, gave good support to Lambert. Off-spinner, Tafari Williams snared 4-48 for Melbourne.

The final is set for next Saturday at a venue to be announced.