GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana – Shamarh Brooks craft­ed an as­ton­ish­ing, un­beat­en hun­dred to pow­er Ja­maica Tallawahs to a 37-run vic­to­ry over Guyana Ama­zon War­riors on Wednes­day night, and in­to Fri­day’s fi­nal of the Caribbean Pre­mier League.

The el­e­gant right-han­der pro­duced a breath­tak­ing 109 not out off 52 de­liv­er­ies – the tour­na­ment’s high­est score – as Tallawahs raced to a sea­son-high 226 for four off their 20 overs at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Prov­i­dence.

The Tallawahs will face the Bar­ba­dos Roy­als who de­feat­ed the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors by 87 runs in the first qual­i­fi­er on Tues­day night.

Mean­while, left-arm spin­ner Imad Wasim, who belt­ed a 15-ball un­beat­en 41, then claimed two for 25 and off-spin­ner Chris Green, two for 40, to help lim­it Ama­zon War­riors to 189 for eight from their al­lot­ted overs.

The con­test was as good as over in the 18th over once top-scor­er Keemo Paul per­ished for 56 off 37 balls but Odean Smith (24) and Gu­dakesh Motie (22 not out) struck some pow­er­ful blows to nar­row the even­tu­al mar­gin of vic­to­ry in a 40-run, eighth wick­et stand.

While Ama­zon War­riors were left to deal with dis­ap­point­ment for an­oth­er cam­paign, Tallawahs will now face Bar­ba­dos Roy­als in the cham­pi­onship game.

“It’s a tremen­dous feel­ing. Cred­it has to be giv­en to the 16 guys [in the squad],” said Tallawahs cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell.

“I think they fought right through­out the sea­son and fought bril­liant­ly.”

Sent in, Tallawahs were tot­ter­ing on 16 for two in the third over when Ken­nar Lewis (0) and Bran­don King (6) fell cheap­ly but Brooks ar­rived at num­ber three to trans­form his side’s for­tunes.

Dropped on five by wick­et­keep­er Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz – a straight­for­ward chance in the third over from seam­er Ro­mario Shep­herd (2-43) – Brooks cap­i­talised on his good for­tune to take apart the host’s at­tack.

He struck sev­en fours and eight six­es, an ar­ray of ex­quis­ite strokes on both sides of the wick­et, as he marched to his half-cen­tu­ry off 34 balls in the 14th over. He need­ed on­ly an­oth­er 16 balls to reach his maid­en hun­dred, the land­mark raised with a bound­ary to ex­tra cov­er in the fi­nal over.

“I had lunch with Bran­don King and he was very up­set with the way I got out in the last in­nings on 47,” Brooks said.

“So he told me I need to take it all the way down re­gard­less of what I think, and that’s what I did to­day and it paid div­i­dends.”

He added: “I thought about it about two or three weeks go [that] I need to get a hun­dred in a T20 game, to put the ic­ing on the cake. I re­al­ly didn’t ex­pect it to hap­pen tonight but I’ll take it with both hands.”

Brooks added 55 for the third wick­et with Pow­ell (37), 52 for the fourth wick­et with Ray­mon Reifer (22) be­fore putting on an in­cred­i­ble 103 from the last 29 balls of the in­nings in part­ner­ship with Imad, who lashed four fours and three six­es.

“I’ve watched the leg­end Chris Gayle, I’ve al­so watched the su­per­man An­dre Rus­sell score hun­dreds for the fran­chise … but this one is right up there with maybe one of the best hun­dreds I’ve ever seen in T20 crick­et,” gushed Pow­ell.

Fac­ing a dif­fi­cult re­quired run rate of 11.35, Ama­zon War­riors lost Irish­man Paul Stir­ling in the third over for two with 19 on the board but re­cov­ered through Shai Hope (31) who post­ed 31 for the sec­ond wick­et with Rah­man­ul­lah (22).

Green snatched two wick­ets to stall the progress at 78 for four in the eighth over be­fore Paul, who blast­ed sev­en fours and a six, re­paired the dam­age in a 34-run, fifth-wick­et stand with cap­tain Shim­ron Het­my­er (15).

Het­my­er and Shep­herd (2) fell in suc­ces­sive overs to all but de­rail any se­ri­ous chal­lenge be­fore Paul fol­lowed af­ter post­ing 34 for the sev­enth with Motie. (CMC)