Chandrapaul Hemraj and Nicholas Pooran lit up the Guyana National Stadium with some blistering stroke play as the Guyana Amazon Warriors whipped the visiting Barbados Tridents by 47 runs in their Hero Caribbean Premier League matchup in Providence on Sunday night.
Hemraj hit a 55-ball 63 but it was Man-of-the-match Pooran’s 15-ball 61 which had the Warriors fans almost rabid with delight as their team joined the Trinbago Knight Riders atop the six-team table with the emphatic win.
Pooran’s blitz took the Warriors to 180 for four before Romario Shepherd bagged four wickets for 13 runs as the visitors were overwhelmed for 133.
TKR, who won the earlier match against the St Lucia Zouks by seven wickets, and Warriors both finished the day with six points from their opening three matches but the Guyana outfit has a better net run rate.
The Tridents’ horrid day began off the very first ball when Hemraj bowled Englishman Alex Hales with his first delivery. Hales, perhaps expecting spin from the wicket, played back instead of forward and saw his stumps knocked over with no runs on the board.
There was a steady flow off Tridents batsmen to and from the pavilion within the first 10 overs but the final nail in the coffin came when last recognised batsman JP Duminy was bowled off an inside edge from the very first ball he faced from medium-pacer Keemo Paul to leave the visitors devastated at 75 for six.
Duminy’s wicket came 12 balls after Tridents skipper Jason Holder was run out going for a second run off a shot to the cover boundary by Duminy. All-rounder Keemo Paul, running around on the boundary in his sweeping position, got his return in quickly and spinner Chris Green did well to collect it at the bowler’s end and run out a late-arriving Holder for just four runs as Tridents were reduced to 53-5.
Thereafter, only Ashley Nurse, with 25-ball 40, offered any real resistance. He was eventually brilliantly caught down the leg side by Pooran after he feathered a rising one from Shepherd off his hip. Raymon Reifer was then bowled around his legs by Shepherd for a duck as Tridents slipped to 119 for eight.
Shepherd put the final icing on the cake in the 17th over by bowling Sandeep Lamichhane to finish with career-best T20 figures.
Earlier, Hemraj got the Warriors off to a brilliant start with some aggressive batting in the Power Play. After losing opening partner Brandon King with just eight runs on the board, Hemraj took over initially. He shared in four 20-plus run partnerships as he stroked six fours and three sixes to all parts of the ground.
But when he was out in the 16th over, brilliantly caught by Nurse running back at backward point, with the score on 102 for four, it was the Pooran show.
Pooran and Shane Rutherford took 72 runs off the last four overs as they slammed 78 runs off the Tridents bowlers altogether. Pooran eventually hit three fours and fives sixes in his tally while Rutherford blasted four sixes.
SUMMARISED SCORES:
GUYANA AMAZON WARRIORS 180-4 (Chanderpaul Hemraj 63, Nicholas Pooran 61 no, Shane Rutherford 32 no, Roshon Primus 2/35) v BARBADOS TRIDENTS 133 all out (Ashley Nurse 40, JP Duminy 20, Romario Shepherd 4/13, Shadab Khan 2/39)
Result: GUYANA AMAZON WARRIORS WON BY 47 RUNS
Man-of-the-match: Nicholas Pooran