PROV­I­DENCE – Nicholas Pooran con­tin­ued his blaz­ing T20 form with a scin­til­lat­ing cen­tu­ry to guide Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers to a com­mand­ing 74-run vic­to­ry over the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors in the Caribbean Pre­mier League in Guyana on Sun­day (Sep­tem­ber 29) night.

Pooran slammed 101, his first cen­tu­ry of this year’s CPL, as the Knight Rid­ers amassed 211 for five in their 20 overs.

The Ama­zon War­riors then suf­fered a mid­dle-or­der col­lapse, los­ing five wick­ets for six runs to even­tu­al­ly be bowled out for 137 in 18.5 overs.

De­spite the re­sult, it was not enough to pro­pel the Knight Rid­ers in­to one of the cov­et­ed top two po­si­tions, as they end­ed the pre­lim­i­nary round in third po­si­tion on 14 points, the same as the War­riors and the St Lu­cia Kings, but with an in­fe­ri­or run rate.

It means they will have to play the Bar­ba­dos Roy­als in the Elim­i­na­tor match on Oc­to­ber 1, while the War­riors – the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons – and Kings will play each oth­er for an au­to­mat­ic spot in the fi­nal in Qual­i­fi­er 1 the fol­low­ing day.

Know­ing they need­ed a big win to have any chance of mov­ing up from third po­si­tion, the Knight Rid­ers over­came the ear­ly loss of Shaqkere Par­ris for a duck in the first over.

Over the course of the next 13 overs dur­ing a 152-run part­ner­ship, Pooran, with the sup­port of Ja­son Roy, com­plete­ly man­han­dled the War­riors’ bowlers, with the for­mer be­ing es­pe­cial­ly sav­age.

Pooran be­gan his on­slaught from the sec­ond over, hit­ting fast bowler Dwaine Pre­to­rius for a six and four off suc­ces­sive balls, and again when he re­turned to bowl the fourth over, Pooran launched him for a six and two more bound­aries.

Ro­mario Shep­herd’s first over and the fifth of the in­nings was greet­ed with three con­sec­u­tive bound­aries by Pooran and he brought up his half-cen­tu­ry in the next over off just 21 balls by clob­ber­ing Shamar Joseph for a six and a four, as the Knight Rid­ers mo­tored along to 75 for one.

Pooran con­tin­ued his on­slaught by hit­ting Im­ran Tahir for suc­ces­sive six­es in the sev­enth over and fol­lowed that up by send­ing spin­ners Gu­dakesh Motie and Moeen Ali out of the park.

He then hit Tahir down the ground for an­oth­er six to move to 98 and brought up his cen­tu­ry by cut­ting Pre­to­rius to point for a sin­gle in the next over.

Joseph broke the part­ner­ship when he had Roy caught by wick­et­keep­er Shai Hope for 34 and An­dre Rus­sell made nine be­fore was al­so caught by Hope off the bowl­ing of Pre­to­rius, to make it 162 for three at the start of the 16th over.

Pooran on­ly added one more run to his to­tal be­fore edg­ing a de­liv­ery from Joseph be­hind, to bring his mag­nif­i­cent in­nings to an end. In to­tal, he faced 59 balls and hit nine fours and eight six­es.

Kea­cy Car­ty, who scored an un­beat­en 27 from 13 balls and cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard, who end­ed on 19 not out, then blun­dered 40 runs off the last three overs to end the in­nings in grand style.

The War­riors were briefly in with a chance dur­ing a 58-run part­ner­ship for the sec­ond wick­et be­tween Shai Hope, who made 28 and Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz, who top­scored with 36.

But when left-arm spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein trapped Hope lbw to leave the War­riors 64 for two, it sparked a spec­tac­u­lar col­lapse that put the Knight Rid­ers in com­plete con­trol.

Waqar Salamkheil dis­missed Gur­baz and Shim­ron Het­my­er for 9, fast bowler Ter­rance Hinds ac­count­ed for Keemo Paul for one and Ro­mario Shep­herd for a duck, as the War­riors crum­bled to 76 for six.

Things got even worse when Salamkheil trapped Pre­to­rius lbw for a duck and Moeen Ali be­came Hinds’ third vic­tim af­ter scor­ing five, to leave the score 88 for eight in the 12th over.

It took a fight­ing, un­beat­en 26 from Gu­dakesh Motie and 20 from Tahir to bring a lev­el of re­spectabil­i­ty to the War­rior’s to­tal.

Hinds was the pick of the bowlers with 3-17, Nathan Ed­ward took 3-19 and Salamkheil 3-26.

CMC

SCORES

TRIN­BA­GO KNIGHT RID­ERS 211-5 in 20 overs (Nicholas Pooran 101, Ja­son Roy 34, Kea­cy Car­ty 27 not out, Kieron Pol­lard 19 not out; Shamar Joseph 3-50).

GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 137 in 18.5 overs (Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz 36, Shai Hope 28, Gu­dakesh Motie 26 not out, Im­ran Tahir 20; Ter­rance Hinds 3-17, Nathan Ed­ward 3-19, Waqar Salamkheil 3-26).

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers won by 74 run.