PROV­I­DENCE – A Play­er-of-the-Match per­for­mance by Moeen Ali dou­bled by a Shai Hope half-cen­tu­ry sent the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors in­to their sec­ond suc­ces­sive Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) fi­nal af­ter they trounced the Bar­ba­dos Roy­als by eight wick­ets in Qual­i­fi­er 2 in Guyana on Fri­day.

Ali snared two wick­ets, in­clud­ing the cru­cial one of skip­per Rov­man Pow­ell, as the Roy­als were dis­missed for 148 in their 20 overs.

The for­mer Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al then re­turned to crack an un­beat­en 44 from 35 balls at the top of the or­der, while Hope scored 56 from 33 balls to guide the War­riors to 149 for two in 14.3 overs.

The re­sult means the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons will clash with the St Lu­cia Kings, who de­feat­ed them in the Elim­i­na­tor, in Sun­day night’s CPL fi­nal.

When it mat­tered most, the Roy­als pro­duced an­oth­er sub-par bat­ting per­for­mance with on­ly one bats­man scor­ing over 30.

Open­er Quin­ton de Kock made a run-a-ball 15 be­fore he was caught by spin­ner Gu­dakesh Motie, and Rah­keem Corn­wall struck four bound­aries be­fore he too was back in the pavil­ion when medi­um pac­er Ro­mario Shep­herd trapped him lbw for 19, to leave the score 36 for two af­ter five overs.

Al­ick Athanaze, who made 26, and Kadeem Al­leyne, who scored 11, came to­geth­er to add 37 runs for the third wick­et to help steady the Roy­als’ in­nings.

But when Al­leyne was spec­tac­u­lar­ly caught by Shim­ron Het­my­er run­ning in from the long off bound­ary off the bowl­ing of Ali, it trig­gered a col­lapse that saw the Roy­als lose three wick­ets for 14 runs.

Athanaze was caught at long on try­ing to hit spin­ner Im­ran Tahir out of the ground and Pow­ell made 12 be­fore he suf­fered the safe fate try­ing to launch Ali, as the Roy­als slumped to 87 for five at the end of 12 overs.

It took a 52-run part­ner­ship be­tween Miller and Ja­son Hold­er to help res­cue the Roy­als’ in­nings and add some re­spectabil­i­ty to the to­tal.

When Miller was even­tu­al­ly dis­missed by pac­er Dwaine Pre­to­rius for the top score of 36 from 26 balls, the Roy­als’ low­er or­der could on­ly muster nine runs from the fi­nal two overs, which cul­mi­nat­ed with the run out of Ma­heesh Theek­shana off the last ball of the in­nings.

Ro­mario Shep­herd took 3-35 and Ali 2-24 to be the main de­stroy­ers for the War­riors.

The War­riors’ open­ing pair of Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz and Ali start­ed slow­ly, ac­cu­mu­lat­ing 14 runs from the first two overs.

How­ev­er, Gur­baz smashed Theek­shana for two back-to-back six­es in the third over that yield­ed 15 runs, and he was even more se­vere on Naveen-ul-Haq, who he hit for a six and two bound­aries in an ex­pen­sive fourth over that went for 18 runs, to help the War­riors mo­tor along to 47 with­out loss af­ter four overs.

But af­ter lash­ing 40 from just 18 balls, Gur­baz top edged Theek­shana to long on where ul-Haq took the catch to give the Roy­als their first break­through at 54 for one.

How­ev­er, there would be lit­tle more for them to cel­e­brate about as Hope’s ar­rival to the crease sparked a 93-run part­ner­ship with Ali to ef­fec­tive­ly end the con­test.

The sixth over bowled by Ja­son Hold­er went for 18 runs, with Hope hit­ting him for a six and two fours and off-spin­ner Rah­keem Corn­wall was al­so hit for a six and a bound­ary in the eighth over that cost 14 runs, as the War­riors reached 90 for one.

Hope even­tu­al­ly reached his half-cen­tu­ry off 26 balls when he slapped pac­er Ra­mon Sim­monds to deep ex­tra cov­er for two.

The pair looked on course to car­ry their team to vic­to­ry, but with two runs re­quired, Sim­monds pro­duced a per­fect york­er to bowl Hope for 56.

In all, he faced 33 balls and struck six fours and two six­es.

Two balls lat­er it was all over, with Ali fit­ting­ly hit­ting the win­ning runs to keep the War­riors’ hopes of be­com­ing just the sec­ond team to win back-to-back CPL ti­tles alive.

SUM­MARISED SCORES

BAR­BA­DOS ROY­ALS 148 in 20 overs (David Miller 36, Al­ick Athanaze 26, Ja­son Hold­er 19, Rah­keem Corn­wall 19, Quin­ton de Kock 15, Rov­man Pow­ell 12, Kadeem Al­leyne 11; Ro­mario Shep­herd 3-35, Moeen Ali 2-24).

GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 149-2 in 14.3 overs (Shai Hope 56, Moeen Ali 44 not out, Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz 40).

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors won by eight wick­ets

CMC