As the action heats up in the Bermuda Smash Invitational, Trinidad & Tobago’s Justin Manick has replaced the injured Keemo Paul in the Smith’s Sixers squad for the play-offs.

Manick, a bowling all-rounder, arrived in Bermuda on Friday. Sixers coach Clevie Wade conducted some drills with the 22-year-old hours after his arrival to prepare him to be thrown into the playing XI for the match against Sandys Spartans.

On Thursday, after his team lost a high-scoring thriller to Jeff Richardson’s side, Wade felt that they were at a disadvantage as their opponents fielded three foreign stars while they were down to two.

“We played with only two pros and they had three, so that worked in their favour,” the coach said

“Keemo Paul’s replacement, I understand, is a bowling all-rounder. We are looking forward to having him for the semi-finals.”

The action on Saturday starts with the clash between champions Hamilton Parish Hurricanes and Pembroke Panthers at 11.30am. On Thursday, Hurricanes, who had their opening match against Sixers abandoned before losing to Spartans, defeated Panthers by six wickets to win for the first time in the tournament.

Clay’s Smith’s side will look for a repeat performance with a spot in the final on the line. West Indies all-rounder Odean Smith, captain Terryn Fray and Alex Dore will be key with the bat for Hurricanes.

Derrick Brangman has the joint-highest wickets in the tournament having claimed six, the same as Nial Smith, of Sixers. Brangman, Raj Nannan, Cejay Outerbridge, Jonté Smith and Odean Smith could play a crucial part with the ball if Hurricanes are to make it to the final.

“We are expecting a tough match,” the Hurricanes coach said.

“They have a very well-balanced team with some good cricketers. However, I have all the faith in my team that we will peak at the right time.”

Panthers coach Cal Waldron is seeking an improvement from the way the team played on Thursday.

Waldron has Akeem Jordan, Tre Manders and Jeavor Royal among the top scorers in the tournament. Dominic Sabir, the clean-hitting Zeko Burgess and Jermal Proctor, are the other batters capable of contributing to the team's success.

Kwasi James has grabbed his opportunity with five wickets in two matches. Burgess, Jordan, Proctor and Sabir are the other members of the bowling attack.

“We know what’s at stake,” Waldron said. “If we want to make it to the final, we have to win the match.

“We know how the match on Thursday transpired. We were unable to penetrate past that big partnership that swayed the game in their favour.

“We’re looking to improve on some of the things that we didn’t do well in that match, bowling and fielding. We also need to put more runs on the board to give us a bigger total to defend.”

Given how Spartans and Sixers played on Thursday, the second semi-final promises fireworks.

After posting 211, a total they could not defend against Spartans, Sixers will be backing themselves to succeed against the same opponents.

Onias Bascome, the Sixers team leader, showed how good he was with the bat when he smashed 74 off 19 balls. Malachi Jones also chipped in with a valuable 68 at the top of the order to take last year’s finalists to what seemed a good enough total to win the match.

Bascome was countered in almost equal measure by Delray Rawlins. The former Bermuda captain struck 70 from 26 balls to become the tournament’s leading scorer with 108 runs.

Rawlins, who is leaving with the Bermuda team for the ICC T20 World Cup Americas regional final in Canada on Monday, had support from Chad Bowes (65) and Kamau Leverock (41). The three batters, as well as Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus, will be the men to watch in the Spartans batting line-up.

Leverock and Rawlins have also contributed significantly to the bowling, with nine wickets between them.

With two wins already in the bag, Richardson used the match on Thursday to give his team a chance to chase, which they had not previously done in this edition of the tournament.

“We won the toss and sent them in because we wanted to test ourselves chasing,” the Spartans coach said.

“The result didn’t matter, we knew we were going to be in the semi-finals anyway. I was quite pleased with how we approached our run chase.”

It has been a massive turnaround for Spartans, a team that struggled to make an impact in the inaugural tournament.

“I think we have a far more well-rounded team this year,” Richardson said.

“We have a bunch of all-rounders in our team. Our selection of players this year was calculated, we did our research and knew what we wanted.

“We just hoped that the draft goes our way and it did. We kept our fingers crossed that certain players were available when it came to our time to pick, and it actually happened that way.”

On Sunday, the proceedings start with an Athene Future Stars match at 10.30am. That will be followed by a skills drill before the curtain is brought down when the two finalists square off to decide the winner of the second edition.