LAST year’s champions Tacarigua All Stars A and runners-up Spring Village were booted out of this year’s Norman’s Windball Cricket Competition playoffs at the quarter-final stage, following defeats to Players and Tacarigua All Stars B, respectively, at Bally Trace Community Centre Ground in Tacarigua last weekend.

 Tacarigua All Stars A were the first ones to feel the hurt when they were defeated by three wickets in a close encounter with Players of Diego Martin, who in recent times have installed themselves as solid favourites to replace the ousted champs.

Batting first, the home squad were bowled out for 62, with Terrence Hinds scoring 22 and Justin Mungroo 15.

Kevin Ramdanie was the main destroyer for Players, taking five for ten.

At one stage, the 2008 champions were batting at 50 for two after the seventh over and looked like they were cruising to their tenth consecutive win and a place in the semis.

But from that position, All Stars A slumped to 57 for five at the conclusion of the ninth over, before losing their last five wickets for the addition of just five runs.

Their demise was mainly due to a combination of poor batting, good fielding and sensible bowling, especially from Ramdanie, who took four of his five wickets in two overs during that spell.

The losers’ batmen failed to capitalise on the foundation Hinds and Mungroo had established.

In reply, Rohan Parsan played well for 18 and Jesse Poland remained unbeaten on 16 as Players reached 63 for seven to book their ticket to the semi-final round.

Narine Samaroo had three for four for the disappointing Tacarigua All Stars A line-up.

 Last season’s bridesmaid Spring Village also went out with a similar record to that of All Stars as their nine-game winning streak came to a halt at the hands of Tacarigua All Stars B on Sunday.

Kevin Baptiste picked up four for seven to help dismiss Spring Village cheaply.

 Michael Barath top-scored with 22 and Clarence Holder made 16 not out (including two sixes) as Tacarigua All Stars B reached 50 for four with eight balls to spare. Brent Nakid had two for 19.

In the Best-of-the-Rest, Young Guns, Special Brew, Sicilians and Surrey joined Dinsley Cricket Club in the semi-finals following wins at the weekend.

Young Guns took care of Take and Past by seven wickets; Special Brew stopped Smokeez by six wickets; Sicilians got the better of DA Team by two wickets; and Surrey Shottas brushed aside both Awesome Eleven and DA Team to make it to the next round.

They beat Awesome Eleven by 53 runs and DA Team by eight wickets.

Last weekend’s scores:

Best-of-the-Rest Knockout

Surrey Shottas 37-8 (Anil Daniel 10; Anil George 6-1) bt DA Team 36 (Ronaldo Ramoutar 3-5, Klye Ramoutar 2-7)

Surrey Shottas won by three wickets

Special Brew 44-4 (Raymond Surujbally 20; Anil Sookram 2-7) bt Smokeez 41 (William Espinoza 4-11, Sunil Khan 2-2)

Special Brew won by six wickets

Surrey Shottas 84-7 (Dominic Ramoutar 35, Kyle Ramoutar 11; Kerry Gonsales 3-11) bt Awesome Eleven 31 (Kerry Gonsales 15; Ronaldo Ramoutar 2-5)

Surrey Shottas won by 53 runs

Sicilians 40-4 (Shawn Singh 14, Ted Rampersad 2-4) bt Legends 39-7 (Ted Rampersad 11, Salim Karim 10; Damian James 2-3)

Sicilians won by six wickets