PROV­I­DENCE – Be­hind a sol­id all-around per­for­mance from Akeal Ho­sein, the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers romped to their fifth Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) ti­tle by over­com­ing the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors by three wick­ets in a low-scor­ing, but ex­cit­ing af­fair in Guyana on Sun­day.

While the win helped the Knight Rid­ers be­come the most dec­o­rat­ed team in the CPL’s 12-year his­to­ry, it proved to be yet an­oth­er heart­break­ing de­feat for the Ama­zon War­riors, who lost in the fi­nal for a his­toric sev­enth oc­ca­sion.

The vis­i­tors used a ster­ling bowl­ing ef­fort, with Saurabh Ne­travalkar grab­bing three wick­ets and Ho­sein two, to lim­it the home side’s high-pow­ered bat­ting unit to 130 for eight in their 20 overs af­ter they chose to bat first in front of a packed Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um.

Af­ter his side suf­fered a low­er-or­der col­lapse in their run chase, which saw them re­duced to 116 for sev­en, Play­er-of-the-Match Ho­sein smashed an un­beat­en 16 from sev­en balls to lift them to 133 for sev­en with two overs to spare.

It was the sec­ond time the Knight Rid­ers tri­umphed over the Ama­zon War­riors in a CPL fi­nal, hav­ing de­feat­ed them by eight wick­ets back in 2018.

Their vic­to­ry was set up by left-arm pac­er Ne­travalkar, along with their three-pronged spin at­tack of Ho­sein, Sunil Nar­ine and Us­man Tariq, which stran­gled the life out of the Ama­zon War­riors’ bats­men.

Iron­i­cal­ly, it was An­dre Rus­sell who struck the first blow when he had the dan­ger­ous Quentin Samp­son caught for a duck by Kieron Pol­lard as he at­tempt­ed to fend off a short de­liv­ery in the first over of the match.

Ben Mc­Der­mott and Shai Hope added 38 runs for the sec­ond wick­et, but need­ed five overs to do so, de­spite the for­mer launch­ing Ho­sein for a six and two fours in the fourth over that leaked 15 runs.

But from a po­si­tion of 41 for one, the home side lost four cru­cial wick­ets for the ad­di­tion of just 24 runs to find them­selves on the back­foot.

Ne­travalkar had Mc­Der­mott caught at deep mid­wick­et for 28 off 17 balls, Hope was bowled by a beau­ty from Ho­sein af­ter play­ing down the wrong line, Moeen Ali was un­done by an arm ball from Tariq and Shim­ron Het­my­er hit Ho­sein straight in­to the hands of Pol­lard sta­tioned at long on, to see the home side crum­ble to 65 for five af­ter 12 overs.

Iftikhar Ahmed and Dwaine Pre­to­rius tried their best to re­vive the in­nings dur­ing a 43-run part­ner­ship for the sixth wick­et, but they too were re­strict­ed by the Knight Rid­ers’ stingy bowl­ing.

Ne­travalkar got the break­through by hav­ing the lat­ter caught at long off for 25 to give Pol­lard his 400th T20 catch and the same com­bi­na­tion was re­spon­si­ble for get­ting rid of Ahmed for the top score of 30 off 27 balls with the penul­ti­mate ball of the in­nings.

Ne­travalkar fin­ished with 3-25, while Ho­sein took 2-26.

The Knight Rid­ers seemed on track for an easy vic­to­ry af­ter open­ers Col­in Munro and Alex Hales blast­ed 33 runs in­side the first three overs.

How­ev­er, Pre­to­rius had Munro caught be­hind for 23 off 15 balls and he al­so had skip­per Nicholas Pooran caught for one, to leave the score 39 for two in the fifth over.

And even when Dar­ren Bra­vo was trapped lbw by Im­ran Tahir and Shamar Joseph ac­count­ed for the wick­et of Sunil Nar­ine, the Knight Rid­ers were still com­fort­ably placed at 89 for four in the 13th over.

Tahir was then hit for three six­es in the next over by Pol­lard, which cost 20 runs, as the vis­i­tors inched clos­er to vic­to­ry by re­duc­ing the equa­tion to 22 runs from 36 balls.

But Tahir set up a thrilling fin­ish by dis­miss­ing Pol­lard for 21 off 12 balls and An­dre Rus­sell with con­sec­u­tive de­liv­er­ies in his next over, while Joseph had Hales caught and bowled for 26, to see the Knight Rid­ers slip to 116 for sev­en in the 17th over.

Ho­sein, though, came to his side’s res­cue, hit­ting Gu­dakesh Motie for a six and four to end the con­test in spec­tac­u­lar fash­ion.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors 130-8 in 2o overs (Iftikhar Ahmed 30, Ben Mc­Der­mott 28, Dwaine Pre­to­rius 25; Saurabh Ne­travalkar 3-25, Akeal Ho­sein 2-26).

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers 133-7 in 18 overs (Alex Hales 26, Col­in Munro 23, Sunil Nar­ine 22, Kieron Pol­lard 21, Akeal Ho­sein 16 not out; Im­ran Tahir 3-34, Shamar Joseph 2-9, Dwaine Pre­to­rius 2-21).

Re­sult: TKR won by three wick­ets

Toss: Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, elect­ed to bat first

Play­er Of The Match: Akeal Ho­sein (TKR)

Play­er Of The Se­ries: Kieron Pol­lard (TKR)

Um­pires: Christo­pher Tay­lor (West In­dies), Gre­go­ry Brath­waite (West In­dies)

TV Um­pire: Leslie Reifer (West In­dies)

Re­serve Um­pire: Deighton But­ler (West In­dies)

Match Ref­er­ee: Re­on King (West In­dies)

In­di­vid­ual awards

Break­out Play­er of the Tour­na­ment - Quin­ton Samp­son

High­est Wick­et Tak­er - Im­ran Tahir

High­est In­di­vid­ual Score Award - Tim Seifert

Biggest Six of the Tour­na­ment - Rov­man Pow­ell

El Do­ra­do Cel­e­bra­tion Award - Gu­dakesh Motie

High­est Run Scor­er - Shai Hope

Most Ac­cu­rate Um­pire of the Tour­na­ment - Deighton But­ler