PROV­I­DENCE – The Bar­ba­dos Roy­als were min­utes away from elim­i­na­tion against the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, but some­how mirac­u­lous­ly ad­vanced to the sec­ond qual­i­fi­er of the Caribbean Pre­mier League with a thrilling nine-wick­et win in Guyana on Mon­day night.

Faulty flood­lights at the Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um, which de­layed play for over two hours, had looked set to send the Knight Rid­ers through to the next round based on the fact that they fin­ished in third po­si­tion at the end of the pre­lim­i­nary rounds, ahead of the fourth-placed Roy­als.

But with the match min­utes away from be­ing called off, the lights re­turned, set­ting the stage for David Miller’s bril­liant, un­beat­en half cen­tu­ry to win the match for the Roy­als.

Set a re­vised tar­get of 60 in five overs af­ter the Knight Rid­ers’ in­nings end­ed on 168 for three from 19.1 overs, Play­er-of-the-Match Miller blast­ed 50 from just 17 balls to pro­pel the Roy­als to 64 for one with four balls to spare.

It marked a thrilling end to a con­test, al­though the Knight Rid­ers will no doubt feel hard done by the re­sult.

With fast runs need­ed, Roy­als’ cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell pro­mot­ed him­self to open­er along with Quin­ton de Kock.

But af­ter pulling Sunil Nar­ine for four off the sec­ond ball of the first over, Nar­ine pro­duced a beau­ti­ful de­liv­ery that de­ceived de Kock and rat­tled his stumps to leave the score five for one.

His de­par­ture brought Miller to the crease, and he wast­ed lit­tle time in hit­ting the sec­ond ball he faced from Nar­ine over mid­wick­et for six.

Pac­er Chris Jor­dan con­ced­ed just two runs from his first three de­liv­er­ies, but Miller cut him over point for a bound­ary and Pow­ell joined in by flick­ing him over deep mid­wick­et for six to end the over.

Nar­ine’s sec­ond over and third of the in­nings went for just nine, with Miller hit­ting him for a soli­tary six over long on, as Roy­als found them­selves 35 for one af­ter three overs.

Knight Rid­ers cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard’s de­ci­sion to stick with Jor­dan, how­ev­er proved to be a de­ci­sive er­ror.

Miller sent his third de­liv­ery of the fourth over ex­tra cov­er for four, the next ball was dis­patched through mid­wick­et for an­oth­er bound­ary and the fifth ball was launched over long on for six, as the Roy­als took 17 runs from the penul­ti­mate over.

Need­ing eight runs for vic­to­ry from the fi­nal over bowled by pac­er Ter­rance Hinds, Miller wast­ed lit­tle time in clob­ber­ing Hinds’ first ball over mid­wick­et for six, be­fore hit­ting him over ex­tra cov­er for an­oth­er max­i­mum to end the match and bring up his 50.

In all he struck five six­es and three fours, while Pow­ell was un­beat­en on nine.

Miller’s block­buster in­nings erased the ef­forts of the Knight Rid­ers’ Nicholas Pooran, who con­tin­ued his dev­as­tat­ing form in the CPL with an un­beat­en 91 from 60 balls.

He formed two half-cen­tu­ry part­ner­ships with Ja­son Roy and An­dre Rus­sell and would have been eye­ing a record sec­ond con­sec­u­tive cen­tu­ry had it not been for the Knight Rid­ers’ in­nings be­ing cut short by the dys­func­tion­al lights.

Pooran added 52 with Roy who made 25 and then shared an un­bro­ken 67-run part­ner­ship with Rus­sell, who scored an un­beat­en 20 from 18 balls.

De­spite los­ing on­ly three wick­ets the Knight Rid­ers were un­able to shift gears and would have been dis­ap­point­ed not to post a big­ger to­tal.

SUM­MARISED SCORES

TRIN­BA­GO KNIGHT RID­ERS 168-3 in 19.1 overs (Nicholas Pooran 91 not out, Ja­son Roy 25, An­dre Rus­sell 20 not out, Kieron Pol­lard 17) vs BAR­BA­DOS ROY­ALS 64-1 in 4.2 overs (David Miller 50 not out).

(CMC)