Vin­ode Mam­chan

Guyana's Ama­zon War­riors put their cam­paign back on track with a 27-run vic­to­ry over the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents in their Li­ma­col Caribbean Pre­mier League T20 se­ries last evening at the Queen's Park Oval.

New Zealan­der Mar­tin Gup­till scored a rapid 73 to lead the War­riors to 149 for nine in their 20 overs and Pak­istani Mo­hammed Hafeez then grabbed three for 19 to re­strict the Tri­dents to 122 all out.

The Tri­dents, chas­ing 150 runs for vic­to­ry at 7.5 runs per over, lost wick­ets at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals and could not build the nec­es­sary mo­men­tum. Skip­per Ke­iron Pol­lard a man who could have sin­gle-hand­ed­ly won the match for the Tri­dents, fell for one and from that point it was just a mat­ter of en­joy­ing the War­riors dom­i­nance of pro­ceed­ings, in front of a packed Queen's Park Oval.

The top-scor­er for the Tri­dents was Pak­istani Shoaib Ma­lik, who con­tin­ues to be their best bats­man on show in this Li­ma­col CPL. He scored 48 off 47 balls with two fours and two six­es.

Apart from him, Dwayne Smith scored a 26-ball, 28 at the top of the or­der, Ja­son Hold­er faced four balls for 16 and Car­los Brath­waite got 18 off 14 balls. The rest told a sad sto­ry, as the War­riors spin­ners sti­fled the nor­mal­ly free-scor­ing Tri­dents.

Ear­li­er, Guyana post­ed less than looked pos­si­ble, as they lost sev­en wick­ets for 13 runs off their fi­nal 15 balls. With the score at 136 for two with two and half overs to go, 160 to 165 looked pos­si­ble but medi­um pac­er Rayad Em­rit (3/27) and some ex­cel­lent out­field­ing, brought them to their knees and they closed at 149 for nine off 20 overs.

Gup­till's wick­et proved very cost­ly as the lanky right han­der was hit­ting the ball sweet­ly. The neu­trals in the crowd re­al­ly en­joyed his lan­guid in­nings, as he took the game away from the Tri­dents ear­ly on. Pol­lard rang in the changes but what forced the wick­ets col­umn to move, was the fact that the in­nings was com­ing to a close and ag­gres­sion was the or­der of the day.

James Franklin left with the score at 136 and the big fish Gup­till left the wa­ter next, as he pulled Em­rit in­to the safe hands of Pol­lard at long on for 73. He faced just 55 balls and struck four fours and four six­es. Al­so among the runs for the War­riors was Pak­istani na­tion­al Mo­hammed Hafeez. He scored 35 off 37 balls with two fours and two six­es in a vi­tal 98-run stand for the sec­ond wick­et, af­ter lo­cal boy Lendl Sim­mons saw his stumps hit the turf off the very first ball.

SCORE­BOARD

Tri­dents vs War­riors

War­riors inns

L Sim­mons b Hold­er 0

M Gup­till c Pol­lard b Em­rit 73

M Hafeez c Pol­lard b Smith 35

J Franklin c Smith b Em­rit 16

C Barn­well c Pol­lard b Shak­ib Al Hasan 0

R Sar­wan c Nurse b Sak­ib 1

S Nar­ine run out 7

D Ramdin c Smith b Em­rit 0

S Ja­cobs not out 0

V Per­maul run out 1

Ex­tras b1, lb9, w5 15

To­tal 9 wk­ts (20ovs) 149

FOW: 0, 98, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 147, 149.

Bowl­ing: J Hold­er 4-0-15-1, C Brath­waite 2-0-18-0, S Al Hasan 4-0-25-2, R Em­rit 4-0-27-3, K Pol­lard 1-0-10-0, A Nurse 3-0-18-0, D Smith 2-0-26-1.

Tri­dents inns

K Ed­wards st Ramdin b Per­maul 1

D Smith lbw Hafeez 28

S Ma­lik c Hafeez b San­tok­ie 48

U Ak­mal st Hafeez 0

K May­ers c Sar­wan b Hafeez 2

K Pol­lard b Ja­cobs 1

S Al Hasan c Franklin b Ja­cobs 3

C Brath­waite c San­tok­ie b Nar­ine 18

A Nurse not out 1

R Em­rit c Hafeez b San­tok­ie 0

J Hold­er st Ramdin b Nar­ine 16

Ex­tras w4 4

To­tal all out (19.4ovs) 122

FOW: 17, 48, 48, 54, 55, 63, 104, 106, 106, 122.

Bowl­ing: C Barn­well 1-0-12-0, K San­tok­ie 4-0-21-2, V Per­maul 3-1-9-1, S Nar­ine 3.4-0-46-2, S Ja­cobs 4-1-15-2, M Hafeez 4-0-19-3. Re­sult: War­riors won by 27 runs.?