The Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) con­tin­ued their mer­ry way on Thurs­day as they de­feat­ed the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors by sev­en wick­ets to record their fifth suc­ces­sive vic­to­ry as the 2020 Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) un­fold­ed at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

SCORES: Guyana Ama­zon War­riors 112/7 (20) ver­sus TKR 115/3 (18.2)

An in­ad­e­quate score of 112/7 was met with in­tel­li­gent bat­ting and an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the sit­u­a­tion by the TKR bats­men. They knew that a good start was im­per­a­tive and open­ers Lendl Sim­mons and Tion Web­ster de­fend­ed stout­ly and at­tacked care­ful­ly. They arranged 34 for the first wick­et close to the end of the pow­er­play. Sim­mons count­ed a run-a-ball 19 and Web­ster car­ried on a bit longer for 27 off 32 that in­clud­ed two six­es and two fours.

The livewire Im­ran Tahir saw the bails light up off suc­ces­sive balls as Web­ster and the con­sis­tent Col­in Munro, left. The ex­pe­ri­ence of Dar­ren Bra­vo then told as he kept his team in the match by en­sur­ing they didn't lose any fur­ther wick­ets. It was all about stay­ing with­in strik­ing dis­tance of the re­quired rate and keep­ing stocks in the dugout.

In the end, the vic­to­ry was for­malised by the dap­per left-han­der and New Zealan­der Tim Sur­feit with 10 balls to spare. Bra­vo scored 26 not out off 28 balls, while the en­er­getic Sur­feit fin­ished the match with two suc­ces­sive fours scor­ing an un­beat­en 39 runs off 30 balls.

An­oth­er slow and low pitch put the bowlers at an ad­van­tage and the TKR men used it bet­ter than their op­po­nents. The may­hem start­ed from the sec­ond over by Sikan­dar Raza and Khary Pierre fol­lowed-up with a dou­ble strike in the oth­er over.

Bran­don King (6), Chan­dra Hem­raj (2), and Nico­las Pooran (1) all had to en­joy the Port-of-Spain sun­set from the dugout as War­riors slipped to 12/4 af­ter just 16 balls of the match.

They nev­er re­cov­ered the way they would have want­ed and in the end, they were re­strict­ed to 112/7. Ross Tay­lor looked pos­i­tive with 26 off 23, Shim­ron Het­my­er worked hard for 26 off 30 and the War­riors got some big hit­ting in the end by Keemo Paul (28 not out) and Ro­mario Shep­perd (11). Pierre end­ed with 3/18 and Fawad Ahmed al­though not tak­ing a wick­et went for on­ly 18 off his four overs, in­clud­ing 10 in the last.

Man of the match Pierre said: "I'd like to thank Almighty God. It was a good all-round team per­for­mance and I'm hap­py for the win. I was watch­ing the games be­fore and the spin­ners were get­ting some pur­chase. It was an easy game­plan, just keep­ing things dis­ci­plined."

He has been very hap­py with his team­mates, say­ing: "It's a fam­i­ly. Every­one looks out for each oth­er. I'm hap­py that I'm part of this team. Guyana are a re­al­ly good team, with a lot of up­com­ing T20 stars. We want­ed to keep it sim­ple."

SCORES:

GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 112/7 (20)(Keemo Paul 28, Shim­ron Het­my­er 26, Ross Tay­lor 26, Khary Pierre 3/18) vs TKR 115/3 (18.2) (Tim Sur­feit 39 no, Dar­ren Bra­vo 26 no, Tion Web­ster 27, Im­ran Tahir 2/25) - TKR won by sev­en wick­ets.