Officials have called time on the Commercial Cricket League’s season-ending Twenty20 tournament and abandoned it in the wake of a fresh protest after a semi-final replay at Shelly Bay Field.

Young Men’s Social Club, who played three short, filed a protest after North Village won the first game by ten wickets the previous week, but then seven-man Village lodged their own appeal after ten-man Social Club won Sunday’s replay by 37 runs, claiming Social Club fielded a player who arrived late.

Fearing the competition was descending into farce, league officials decided on Monday to scrap this season’s tournament altogether. League champions Spring Garden Cavaliers were due to meet the winners in the final.

“I will just abandon the tournament and we start fresh next year,” Barry Richards, the league president, said.

The decision to abandon the tournament has angered Larry Douglas, Social Club’s team manager, who was looking forward to this weekend’s final.

“This is ridiculous,” he said yesterday. “Players from all the teams have been turning up late for games all season,” said Douglas, who confirmed that Troy Lewis, Social Club’s football coach, batted at No 10 after arriving late from a football game.

“My appeal is more legitimate than theirs,” Douglas added. “Village should have been thrown out last week.”

He added: “We’ve played with seven players most of the season. It’s disheartening to my team and I’m not sure we’ll get them out again next season.”

The league ordered the replay — in the “interest of sportsmanship”, according to Dave Carruthers, the league’s secretary-treasurer — after Social Club lodged a protest over North Village’s team, which they claimed contained three ineligible players, including Brian Hall, who played for Western Stars this season.

League officials agreed that two of the players were free to play but, because eligibility rules were unclear, they called for the replay.

At the same time, they ordered Hall, who made 34 not out in Village’s 96 without loss in reply to Social Club’s 92 for four, to sit out the replay. Village’s protest centred on Social Club’s decision to bat with ten men after Allen Walker, the Village captain, said that he was told at the toss, which Village won, that his opponents had only nine men.

“After the toss, I asked their captain [Charles Warren] how many players he had and he replied ‘nine’,” Walker said.

“I confirmed that because I had counted them beforehand. I asked their captain to provide me with a team sheet. No team sheet was provided at the start of their innings.

“My reason for confirming the amount of players was based on the previous experience where players showed up way past the start of the game. When we thought we had bowled them out around the 15 to 16-over mark, the extra player came in to bat.”

Social Club went on to bat out their 20 overs.

“I went to the sideline and questioned the captain about the extra player, but he remained silent,” Walker said. “I immediately told Social Club that we would continue to play, but under protest.”

Village were dismissed for 55 in reply to Social Club’s 92 for eight.