Trinidad and To­ba­go Le­gions cre­at­ed his­to­ry on Sat­ur­day by cap­tur­ing the in­au­gur­al West In­dies Break­out League with an ex­cit­ing 17-run win over the Lee­ward Is­lands Thun­der.

In a thrilling fi­nale at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, the home side post­ed 181 for five in their 20 overs af­ter be­ing sent in to bat.

The vis­i­tors then made a spir­it­ed ef­fort to reach their tar­get, but fell just short, fin­ish­ing on 164 for nine at the end of their al­lot­ted 20 overs.

Le­gions open­er Kamil Pooran proved to be the hero, smash­ing 73 from 44 balls with sev­en fours and four six­es to hold the in­nings to­geth­er af­ter the Thun­der threat­ened to take con­trol of the con­test.

He added 52 runs for the first wick­et with Amir Jan­goo, who struck 23 from 17 balls, to give the Le­gions a sol­id start.

Thun­der cap­tain Kari­ma Gore broke the part­ner­ship by dis­miss­ing Jan­goo, but Pooran con­tin­ued to at­tack dur­ing a 30-run stand with Navin Bidaisee.

But from a dom­i­nant po­si­tion of 82 for one in the 10th over, the Le­gions lost three wick­ets for the ad­di­tion of just one run to hand the mo­men­tum to the Thun­der.

Leg spin­ner Mic­ah McKen­zie claimed the wick­ets of Bidaisee for five and Jyd Goolie for a duck, while Gore trapped Crys­t­ian Thur­ton lbw for a duck.

Pooran then added 39 cru­cial runs with cap­tain Joshua Da Sil­va be­fore he was dis­missed by An­der­son Ma­hase to leave the score 122 for five at the start of the 15th over.

Skip­per Da Sil­va, along with Joshua James, then blud­geoned 59 runs from the last five overs to get their side up to a com­pet­i­tive to­tal.

Da Sil­va fin­ished un­beat­en on 40 from 31 balls with four fours and one six, while James was not out on 26 off 16 de­liv­er­ies, in­clu­sive of two six­es and one four.

Gore took 2-22 with his left-arm spin and McKen­zie grabbed 2-29.

The Thun­der’s run chase got off to a blaz­ing start with open­ers Jamie Cor­nelius and Kofi James plun­der­ing 57 runs in­side five overs.

How­ev­er, when Cor­nelius was dis­missed by fast bowler McKen­ny Clarke for 11, it sparked a sud­den col­lapse, which put the Le­gions in con­trol of the match.

Bidaisee had Jew­el An­drew caught for 14 and bowled Mikyle Louis for one and Goolie dis­missed Gore for just five, to see the Thun­der slump to 89 for four in the 10th over.

James re­mained un­fazed by the loss of wick­ets around him and con­tin­ued his counter-at­tack­ing in­nings, even­tu­al­ly reach­ing his half cen­tu­ry.

But just when it looked as though he would car­ry his side to vic­to­ry he was dis­missed by Goolie for the top score of 63 off 36 de­liv­er­ies, as the Thun­der slid to 102 for five.

His dis­missal ef­fec­tive­ly end­ed the Thun­der’s hopes of vic­to­ry, and de­spite a fight­ing ef­fort from their low­er or­der, they could not keep up with the ever-in­creas­ing run rate and unl­ti­mate­ly fell short of their tar­get.

Goolie end­ed with 3-13, Clarke snared 3-34, while Bidaisee took 2-27.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

T&T LE­GIONS 181-5 in 20 overs (Kamil Pooran 73, Joshua Da Sil­va 40 not out, Joshua James 26 not out, Amir Jan­goo 23; Kari­ma Gore 2-22, Mic­ah McKen­zie 2-29).

LEE­WARD IS­LANDS THUN­DER 164-9 in 20 overs (Kofi James 63, El­roy Fran­cis 23, Jew­el An­drew 14, Jamie Cor­nelius 11, Giovonte De­peiza 11, Cameron Pen­nyfeath­er 10; Jyd Goolie 3-13, McKen­ny Clarke 3-34, Navin Bidaisee 2-27).

Trinidad and To­ba­go Le­gions won by 17 runs.