rain affected the Camel Cup semi-finals on Saturday.

Western Stars and defending champions St. George's, chasing almost identical totals, had different results.

Stars beat Bailey's Bay at Devonshire Rec. by 47 runs, after finishing ahead of their revised target when a heavy shower ended play at 6.15 with Stars 219-3 after 36.3 overs in reply to Bay's total of 283.

At Sea Breeze Oval, Southampton Rangers reached their first Camel Cup final after scoring 281-7 and then reducing the holders to 158-5 after 37.1 overs when rain ended play at 6.20.

The key to Stars' victory was captain Albert Steede's unbeaten 108 which enabled the side to score their runs at 6.03 an over, putting them ahead of Bay's run rate of 5.66. Also significant was that Stars had wickets in hand which, when tabulating their resources intact (overs remaining and wickets in hand), meant that they had used up 60.8 percent of their resources.

That gave Stars a revised target of 172 which they had already surpassed by 47 runs. Steede reached his century in 126 minutes off 104 balls and his innings included 11 fours and two sixes. He and Treadwell Gibbons put on 69 for the first wicket in just 10 overs and at the 20-over mark had 120 from 20 overs.

Also making useful contributions for Stars with the bat were Gibbons with 23, Jermaine Postlethwaite (21) and Ricky Brangman (21).

Bowling honours went to Stars spinner Hasan Durham who finished with impressive figures of five for 31 from 10 overs.

Ricky Hill led Bay to what they thought would be a match-winning total, smashing 89 as he and Jermaine Warner (22) put on 66 for the first wicket.

After the next three batsmen, Stephen Outerbridge, Charlie Marshall and Irving Romaine all went cheaply, Noel Gibbons helped revive the innings with 43 not out, while Corey Hill smashed 52 late in the innings.

Olin Jones hit a century on a flat Sea Breeze Oval wicket while Keith Wainwright scored 80. The pair came together at 4-1 in the third over and added 190 for the second wicket in the next 36 overs to lay the foundation for Rangers' big total.

Jones, who batted for 137 minutes, hit 105 off 111 balls and smashed 19 fours while Wainwright stroked 10 fours and two sixes. Captain Janeiro Tucker blasted five sixes and a four in a quick knock of 40.

Herbie Bascome claimed four for 41 to lead the St. George's bowling while Travis Smith took two for 51 from eight overs of spin.

St. George's paid the ultimate price for not matching Rangers' run-rate and losing wickets in the process as they were 31 runs short of their revised target of 190 when the rain came. Rangers scored their runs at 5.62 an over while St. George's scored at 4.28 and used 67.9 percent of their resources in the process.

Sinclair Gibbons was top scorer with 36 in 95 minutes while Graham Fox scored 21, Ryan Steede 20 and Dexter Smith and Dean Minors 19 each.