BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

Tournament organisers will be reviewing the controversial semi-final rule that kept Barbados out of the TCL West Indies Under-19 one-day final, in a bizarre conclusion to the tournament last week in St. Kitts.

Barbados, the leading team after the three-round preliminary stage, missed out on the final after their semi-final against Guyana was abandoned because of rain.

Under the tournament playing conditions, the two highest-ranked teams coming out of the preceding three-day tournament, qualified for the final in the event of a washout of the semi-finals. It meant that Guyana and Jamaica, who finished first and second in the three-day tournament, contested the final.

Rules

"The competition was proceeding based on this rule and these rules are not put in place to favour one team at the expense of another," Derek Nicholas, the West Indies Cricket Board's (WICB) cricket operations officer, told CMC Sports.

"You have no way of knowing at the beginning of a tournament which of the six teams would qualify or which of the six teams would end up in a situation that the rules may or may not assist.

"The rules are not there to help one team versus the other. They are just really there to guide the competition and all concerned.

"It's really unfortunate and definitely something we will have to haveanother look at and see if we can devise a system that is more equitable to all concerned."

Heavy rain and strong winds, associated with the passage of Hurricane Dean, swept across St. Kitts Friday bringing a sudden end to both semi-finals. Barbados managed to bowl 5.3 overs against Guyana, while the Leeward Islands sent down just 21 overs against Jamaica in the other semi-final match.

Fixtures

Nicholas said no thought had been given to rescheduling the fixtures because of the hectic schedule players were already engaged in.

"It's unfortunate. The best laid plans sometimes go to waste because things we didn't plan for like weather and other interventions do happen and can happen," Nicholas said.

"No decision was taken where that was concerned, to reschedule the semi-final or final. Most of these players currently involved - some of them are actually going back to their home team to get ready for regional competition starting as early as the end of September going into October.

"Some of the guys have been playing cricket pretty much non-stop since the beginning of the year so it allows them a little bit of a reprieve before some of them have to go back to school or to college. So no decision was taken to reschedule the semi-final or final, it would have been ideal but that's not the case.

"All in all, I think the tournament was well fought, keenly contested between teammates and teams and everyone that we have been talking to so far have pretty much had good reviews of the tournament."