PROV­I­DENCE – Half-cen­turies from Shai Hope and Shim­ron Het­my­er, fol­lowed up by a dis­ci­plined bowl­ing ef­fort, car­ried the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors to a com­mand­ing 47-run vic­to­ry over the Bar­ba­dos Roy­als in the 27th match in the Caribbean Pre­mier League.

On Wednes­day, the high-scor­ing clash at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um saw the War­riors first post 219 for eight, with the Roy­als re­ply­ing with 172 for nine.

The Bar­ba­dos Roy­als won the toss and opt­ed to bowl, and they got an ear­ly break­through when Ma­heesh Theek­shana struck in the open­ing over by re­mov­ing Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz for sev­en.

How­ev­er, the War­riors quick­ly re­cov­ered, thanks to a 51-run stand be­tween Azam Khan and Shai Hope in less than five overs.

Ja­son Hold­er end­ed the part­ner­ship by re­mov­ing Khan for 26, but Het­my­er’s ar­rival sparked a dev­as­tat­ing coun­ter­at­tack.

The left-hand­ed Het­my­er put on a cen­tu­ry stand with Hope, rip­ping through the Roy­als’ bowl­ing at­tack.

Guyana’s ag­gres­sive mid­dle-overs surge saw them race to 100 in just 9.4 overs.

The pair dom­i­nat­ed, with Het­my­er reach­ing his half-cen­tu­ry off 29 balls and Hope fol­low­ing suit just two de­liv­er­ies lat­er.

Their as­sault in­clud­ed a 25-run over off Roy­als cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell.

Het­my­er would be the fourth vic­tim for the War­riors, go­ing for a well-played 57 from 34 balls with four fours and three six­es, while Hope fell right af­ter for a top score of 71 from 37 balls, in­clud­ing five fours and five six­es.

Al­though Guyana lost four wick­ets in quick suc­ces­sion, Ro­mario Shep­herd’s late blitz of 23 from 13 balls helped them post a for­mi­da­ble 219.

In re­sponse, the Roy­als fal­tered ear­ly, los­ing two quick wick­ets. Open­er Kadeem Al­leyne fell to Gu­dakesh Motie for one and then Dwaine Pre­to­ri­ous ac­count­ed for the wick­et of Al­ick Athanaze for 8, at 17-2 in the fourth over.

Open­er Quin­ton de Kock’s quick­fire 21-run over briefly shift­ed mo­men­tum. How­ev­er, the Roy­al’s pow­er­play yield­ed on­ly 46 runs, and the pres­sure start­ed to mount.

Moeen Ali then came to the par­ty by re­mov­ing de Kock for 35, and with Im­ran Tahir’s twin strikes in con­sec­u­tive overs, left the Roy­als reel­ing at 79 for five in the 11th over.

Ali’s 2 for 16 in his mid­dle-overs spell and Motie’s 3 for 42 fur­ther suf­fo­cat­ed the chase, de­spite David Miller’s de­fi­ant hit­ting to­wards the end, pro­vid­ing on­ly tem­po­rary re­sis­tance.

Miller’s un­beat­en 71 came too late for the Roy­als who fin­ished 172-9, thus hand­ing vic­to­ry to the War­riors who strength­ened their bid for a top-two fin­ish.

CMC

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 219-8 in 20 overs (Shai Hope 71, Shim­ron Het­my­er 57. Ma­heesh Theek­shana 3-15) vs BAR­BA­DOS ROY­ALS 172-9 in 20 overs (David Miller 71 not out, Quin­ton de Kock 35. Gu­dakesh Motie 3-42, Moeen Ali 2-16, Im­ran Tahir 2-22). Guyana Ama­zon War­riors won by 47 runs.