Irv­ing Ward

Lead Ed­i­tor - Print

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors made it sixth time lucky as they se­cured their first Caribbean Pre­mier League T20 ti­tle with a com­pre­hen­sive nine-wick­et rout of the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Prov­i­dence, Guyana, last night.

Rid­ing on the backs of a bril­liant spell from South African pac­er and Man-of-the-Match Dwaine Pre­to­rius, who bagged four wick­ets for 26 runs, the War­riors steam­rolled TKR for a miser­ly 94 be­fore se­cur­ing their mas­sive vic­to­ry to the de­light of their flag-wav­ing home fans.

With War­riors hav­ing failed to take the ti­tle in five pre­vi­ous tries, South African-born Im­ran Tahir, in his first sea­son as skip­per at the age of 44, fi­nal­ly led the team to the cov­et­ed CPL ti­tle and on home soil at that.

TKR skip­per Kieron Pol­lard and his team, mean­while, were left with the heart­break of a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty to se­cure a fifth ti­tle in what was their fifth ap­pear­ance in a fi­nal in the com­pe­ti­tion’s 11 sea­son.

Speak­ing dur­ing the medal cer­e­mo­ny, Tahir said, “Great ex­pe­ri­ence in play­ing for this beau­ti­ful fran­chise and play­ing for these beau­ti­ful peo­ple who al­ways come and sup­port us. Com­ing in­to the com­pe­ti­tion, I think every­one send­ing jokes that I be­come a cap­tain, so I think those things mo­ti­vat­ed me so I ac­tu­al­ly want to thank the peo­ple who said that.”

He al­so thanked his fam­i­ly, the play­ers and their fam­i­lies for their sup­port through­out the sea­son.

On his team’s loss mean­while, Pol­lard said he was not dis­ap­point­ed by the play­ers’ ef­forts this sea­son, not­ing that they fin­ished sixth last sea­son.

“We were beat­en by the bet­ter team to­day, Guyana, so well played to Guyana, I think they played well, they played con­sis­tent crick­et through­out the tour­na­ment and they’re de­served win­ners tonight.”

In the War­riors’ run chase, Play­er of the Tour­na­ment Shai Hope and Saim Ayub steered the War­riors to glo­ry with an un­bro­ken 84-run sec­ond-wick­et part­ner­ship af­ter spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein got the on­ly break­through for TKR with the wick­et of pinch-hit­ter Keemo Paul (11) in the third over.

Af­ter that, TKR skip­per Pol­lard tried a steady dose of spin but could not prise out any more War­riors wick­ets.

Ayub even­tu­al­ly sealed the War­riors’ win with a six off the last ball of the 14th over from pac­er Ali Khan to fin­ish on a well-played un­beat­en 52, in­clud­ing five six­es and two fours. Hope was al­so un­beat­en on 32 at the end.

Ear­li­er, the War­riors got just the start they hoped for as they re­moved TKR open­ers Mark Deyal and Chad­wick Wal­ton in­side the pow­er play while re­strict­ing their scor­ing.

Deyal was bowled off an ap­par­ent in­side edge as he tried to pull a de­liv­ery off pac­er Pre­to­rius in the 3rd over with the score on 24. Four balls lat­er, Wal­ton ad­judged lbw to a de­liv­ery that kept low off Shep­pard as TKR slipped to 29-2.

It was, how­ev­er, to get even worse.

Skip­per Tahir turned to his slow­er bowlers, in­tro­duc­ing left-arm or­tho­dox spe­cial­ist Gu­dakesh Motie, who brought im­me­di­ate re­sults with a dou­ble-wick­et strike in the sev­enth over.

First, he re­moved the prized wick­et of TKR skip­per Pol­lard, who was caught at deep mid-wick­et by Saim Ayub for a duck af­ter he tried to launch the spin­ner over the ropes to leave the men in red tot­ter­ing at 42-4. With just two runs added, Akeal Ho­sein then played an in­ju­di­cious shot and man­aged on­ly to sky an easy catch to Het­my­er at long-off.

Tahir him­self then en­sured there would be no TKR re­cov­ery two and a half overs lat­er when he re­moved their last hope by out­fox­ing the big-hit­ting An­dre Rus­sell in­to sky­ing a slog sweep in­to the safe hands of Pre­to­rius at mid-on.

Af­ter that, there was a steady pro­ces­sion of wick­ets as none of the TKR bat­ters seemed in­ter­est­ed in at least play­ing out the 20 overs. Pre­to­rius put the ic­ing on the cake with an­oth­er dou­ble-wick­et strike in the 16th over, which brought him the scalps of Sunil Nar­ine (1) and Ali Khan (1) and start­ed the par­ty in the stands among the War­riors fans ear­li­er than would have been ex­pect­ed.

Motie and Tahir were very eco­nom­i­cal with 2/7 and 2/8 re­spec­tive­ly, as TKR were even­tu­al­ly rout­ed for an em­bar­rass­ing 94 in 18.1 overs.

SCORES:

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers 94 (18.1) (Kea­cy Car­ty 38, Mark Deyal 16, Dwaine Pre­to­rius 4/26, Gu­dakesh Motie 2/7, Im­ran tahir 2/8) v Guyana Ama­zon War­riors 99-1 (14) (Saim Ayub 52 no, Shai Hope 32 n/o, Akeal Ho­sein 1/21)