GEORGE­TOWN – Guyana Ama­zon War­riors scored a morale-boost­ing win ahead of the start of the play­offs when they brushed aside lead­ers Bar­ba­dos Roy­als by five wick­ets in the fi­nal group stage game of the Caribbean Pre­mier League in Guyana on Sun­day night.

The hosts lim­it­ed the high-fly­ing Roy­als to 125 in the 18th over, fast bowler Ro­mario Shep­herd snatch­ing three for 14 to un­der­mine the in­nings and all-rounder Ja­son Hold­er top-scor­ing with 42 from 39 balls to help get his side past the 100-run mark.

In re­ply, Ama­zon War­riors got a top score of 53 from Man-of-the-Match Shak­ib-al-Hasan as they over­hauled their tar­get in the 15th over, to post their fifth win and fourth on the bounce, and end in sec­ond spot on 11 points.

Ama­zon War­riors will now face Roy­als again on Tues­day in the first qual­i­fi­er at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um at 10 am, the win­ner book­ing their place in Fri­day’s fi­nal at the same venue.

Tues­day’s sec­ond game at 7 pm will see the third and fourth placed teams, St Lu­cia Kings and Ja­maica Tallawahs, clash in the first elim­i­na­tor.

In­sert­ed, Roy­als lost left-han­der Kyle May­ers with­out scor­ing to the fourth de­liv­ery of the game with on­ly a run on the board, and then al­so saw seam­er Keemo Paul (2-9) knock over both Rah­keem Corn­wall (2) and Har­ry Tec­tor (5) in the sec­ond over, to leave the in­nings tot­ter­ing on eight for three.

Hold­er ar­rived to blast a four and three six­es to in­spire the best stand of the in­nings – a 51-run, fourth wick­et part­ner­ship with Azam Khan who made 20 from 24 balls – be­fore Roy­als lost six wick­ets for 38 runs.

Mu­jeeb-ur-Rah­man (15) and Ra­mon Sim­monds (13 not out) scam­pered 28 for the last wick­et to gath­er pre­cious runs at the end.

Fac­ing a straight­for­ward run chase, Ama­zon War­riors stum­bled ear­ly on when Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj (0) and Shai Hope (16) per­ished cheap­ly with 18 runs on the board.

How­ev­er, left-han­der Shak­ib lashed five fours and three six­es in a 30-ball knock to in­spire a 79-run, third wick­et part­ner­ship with Afghan right-han­der Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz (22), which laid the foun­da­tion for vic­to­ry.

CMC

Scores:

ROY­ALS 125 off 17.3 overs (Ja­son Hold­er 42; Ro­mario Shep­herd 3-14, Keemo Paul 2-9) vs AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 126 for five off 14.3 overs (Shak­ib-al-Hasan 53, Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz 22; Obed Mc­Coy 2-22). Guyana Ama­zon War­riors won by five wick­ets.