GEORGE­TOWN – Im­ran Tahir said crit­i­cism of his ap­point­ment as cap­tain of Guyana Ama­zon War­riors helped in­spire him to achieve suc­cess in the just con­clud­ed Caribbean Pre­mier League.

The 43-year-old South African over­saw Ama­zon War­riors’ first-ever cap­ture of the re­gion­al T20 ti­tle, when he led them to a crush­ing nine-wick­et win over four-time cham­pi­ons Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers in the fi­nal in Guyana on Sun­day.

Ama­zon War­riors had been un­suc­cess­ful in five pre­vi­ous trips to the fi­nal, the first com­ing back in 2013 in the in­au­gur­al year of the tour­na­ment.

“A lot of peo­ple said a lot of neg­a­tive things be­fore I came,” an emo­tion­al Tahir said fol­low­ing the fi­nal at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um.

“Com­ing in­to the com­pe­ti­tion, I think every­one [was] send­ing jokes that I be­come a cap­tain so I think ac­tu­al­ly those things mo­ti­vat­ed me so I ac­tu­al­ly want to say thanks to the peo­ple who said that.

“I al­so want to thank my fam­i­ly and all the play­ers’ fam­i­lies. They have been on the road with us. It’s been a great jour­ney, a very spe­cial jour­ney.”

He added: “It’s been a great ex­pe­ri­ence play­ing for this beau­ti­ful fran­chise and for these beau­ti­ful peo­ple who al­ways come and sup­port us. I am just re­al­ly grate­ful to almighty.”

Tahir grabbed two wick­ets in the fi­nal to take his tal­ly for the tour­na­ment to 18, just be­hind the lead­ing wick­et-tak­er – fel­low South African Dwaine Pre­to­ri­ous, who spear­head­ed the Ama­zon War­riors at­tack.

Ama­zon War­riors al­so boast­ed the tour­na­ment’s two lead­ing run-scor­ers, West In­dies one-day cap­tain Shai Hope amass­ing 481 runs at an av­er­age of 53 and 21-year-old Pak­istani left-han­der Saim Ayub gath­er­ing 478 at an av­er­age of 43.

Fit­ting­ly, it was Hope and Saim who com­bined in an en­ter­tain­ing 84-run, un­bro­ken sec­ond-wick­et stand to guide Ama­zon War­riors to vic­to­ry in the fi­nal.

“Since we start­ed from St Lu­cia, we had the be­lief. We al­ways get in­to the semis and fi­nals and then [not won the ti­tle],” Tahir said.

“We just worked very hard. Re­sults were nev­er go­ing to be in our hands but we knew from the day we ar­rived we were gelling re­al­ly well, even though we nev­er found an open­er. This is the beau­ti­ful thing about our team cul­ture.

“I’m just re­al­ly grate­ful to every sin­gle play­er, they gave their hearts out, es­pe­cial­ly in the last two games. We played like we nev­er played be­fore. They made my job eas­i­er.”

Tahir said the ti­tle con­quest was def­i­nite­ly one of the high­lights of his play­ing ca­reer while prais­ing or­gan­is­ers of the league.

“If I told you this is one of the great­est achieve­ments I have then ob­vi­ous­ly this is a very, very spe­cial mo­ment,” he said.

“And play­ing in CPL for the last six years, I want to thank CPL and the way they or­ga­nized this league – it has been beau­ti­ful, it has been un­be­liev­able. Very good com­pe­ti­tion.”

CMC