Skip­per Ke­iron Pol­lard 72 played one of the great­est in­nings in the his­to­ry of the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) to give his team an amaz­ing come from be­hind vic­to­ry against de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents in their clash at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day.

SCORES: Tri­dents 148/7 (20) ver­sus TKR 149/8 (19.5). TKR won by two wick­ets.

Chas­ing 149 runs to win TKR looked dead and buried mid­way through their run chase as big Ke­iron Pol­lard strode to the crease with their score at 62/5 off 12.4 overs. What was wit­nessed af­ter that was one of the great­est in­nings in the his­to­ry of the tour­na­ment, as Pol­lard ham­mered the Tri­dents bowl­ing to not on­ly all parts of the Oval but al­so Port-of-Spain be­cause balls went fly­ing clean out the grounds and are prob­a­bly still go­ing.

All of a sud­den the pitch which was look­ing dif­fi­cult to bat on was a bel­ter and Pol­lard was hit­ting balls at ease. He took the bowl­ing by the scruff of the neck and made every bowler look or­di­nary. There was a pe­ri­od dur­ing his 72-run blast where he struck six six­es and two fours in the space of 14 balls. His fi­nal 72 came off 28 balls with nine six­es and two fours.

The Tri­dents were well in the game with 31 runs re­quired off two overs but Pol­lard slammed 16 runs off the penul­ti­mate over bowled by Tri­dents skip­per Ja­son Hold­er to leave 15 re­quired off the fi­nal over. Be­fore that the 33-year-old right-hand bat­ting all-rounder, at one stage blast­ed six six­es and two fours in the space of 14 balls. He took 24 runs off the 17th over bowled by Hay­den Walsh Jr, the tour­na­ment’s 2019 Most Valu­able Play­er (MVP).

The task was left to Ray­mond Reifer and Pol­lard slammed the first ball of the over for six. He was then run out com­ing back for two runs off the next ball. The equa­tion was down to eight runs off four balls when Jay­den Seales walked in to join Khary Pierre. Seales got a sin­gle and the next ball Pierre played an up­per­cut over back­ward point for six. And with just one run need­ed off two balls, he sliced a four down to third to rush off to his in­com­ing team­mates who swarmed the field in cel­e­bra­tion.

With the win, the TKR now has six vic­to­ries and are in­to the se­mi-fi­nals of the tour­na­ment.

Ear­li­er, the Tri­dents en­joyed a much bet­ter pitch than we have seen here at the Queen’s Park Oval this tour­na­ment to ral­ly up to 148/7. John­son Charles who got 47 and the con­sis­tent Kyle May­ers 42 had bat­tled well against the TKR bowl­ing line-up miss­ing Dwayne Bra­vo and Ali Khan (rest­ed), and Sunil Nar­ine slight fin­ger in­jury.

With the day off on Fri­day, the ground staff worked fever­ish­ly on the pitch do­ing a lot of cross rolling which im­proved the den­si­ty of the track and led to less trac­tion, hence the ball turned less. There was al­so a lot of rolling with the heavy roller which led to more com­paction and hence the ball came much bet­ter un­to the bat, which made stroke­play a lot eas­i­er.

John­son Charles was quick out the blocks and gave them a good start scor­ing 47 off 34 balls two six­es and four fours. The con­sis­tent Kyle May­ers was again pleas­ant to watch as he record­ed 42 off 37 balls which in­clud­ed one six and three fours. May­ers has been the Tri­dents best bats­man and ear­li­er on in the tour­na­ment record­ed a fine 85 against the Ja­maica Tallawahs.

Akeal Ho­sein play­ing in his first game took 2/30, while pac­er Jay­den Seales con­tin­ued to im­press tak­ing 2/21.

Pol­lard speak­ing af­ter the win said: “I thought we left it too late but I knew we had a cou­ple of overs to make up.” The West In­dies cap­tain said it was all about keep­ing his head in the right po­si­tion and adopt­ing a strong base. “Kept that head po­si­tion and a strong base. Tar­get­ted the Hay­den Walsh over and that’s where the mo­men­tum turned for us. We lost ear­ly wick­ets and were four down so it was a mat­ter of con­sol­i­dat­ing. We had a plan, and some­times we leave it too late, but all things be­ing equal, we can get the six­es.”

Asked whether this is his best-ever T20 in­nings he said: “ It’s up there. To­day my strik­ing abil­i­ty came in­to play.”

Hold­er al­though los­ing the match ad­mired Pol­lard’s dis­play: “It was a re­al­ly good knock, we must give him cred­it. Took the game away from us at the very end. We had to keep wick­ets in hand, we did it in the last game as well. It’s re­al­ly im­por­tant to have a set bat­ter at the end. The seam­ers are eas­i­er to hit at the back end. We did re­al­ly well to get to 148, prob­a­bly didn’t ex­e­cute well with the ball, but cred­it to Pol­lard. We tried to get him out ear­ly but he played out Rashid. And he didn’t miss any­thing.”

SCORES: Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents 148/7 (20) (John­son Charles 47, Kyle May­ers 42, Jay­den Seales 2/21, Akeal Ho­sein 2/30) vs TKR 149/8 (19.5) (Ke­iron Pol­lard 72, Lendl Sim­mons 32, Ja­son Hold­er 2/27) - TKR won by 2 wk­ts.