Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers skip­per Kieron Pol­lard's dreams of lead­ing his home side to a hat-trick of Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League ti­tles in his first sea­son in charge im­plod­ed on Thurs­day night as the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents pulled off a 12-run vic­to­ry to book their spot in Sat­ur­day's fi­nal against the un­beat­en Guyana Ama­zon War­riors.

Ash­ley Nurse de­liv­ered his best all-round per­for­mance of the tour­na­ment with a breezy nine-ball un­beat­en 24 which got Tri­dents to a com­pet­i­tive 160-6, be­fore he took two wick­ets for 14 runs, in­clud­ing the prized scalps of De­nesh Ramdin (21) and Dar­ren Bra­vo (2), as TKR were bun­dled out for 148 at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba.

How­ev­er, it was medi­um-pac­er Ray­mon Reifer who de­liv­ered the death blow to the TKR out­fit with a fi­nal over in which he re­moved the de­fi­ant Seekkuge Pras­sana, who had threat­ened the pull off a come from be­hind win for the home side and tailen­der Khary Pierre (0) to stun the home fans and shat­ter TKR's dreams of a record hat-trick and fourth over­all ti­tle.

With TKR need­ing 14 runs off the last six balls and Pras­sana well set on a 27-ball 51, in­clud­ing four fours and four six­es, Reifer de­liv­ered a york­er first up straight on­to Pras­sana's back foot, trap­ping him leg be­fore wick­et. Two balls lat­er, he got Pierre to sky one to Alex Hales, who came in off the deep mid-on bound­ary to ac­cept the catch and send the Tri­dents to the fi­nal.

But the Tri­dents had sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to reach their fourth CPL fi­nal ear­ly on when the had both TKR open­ers Lendl Sim­mons (1) and Sunil Nar­ine (17) back in the dugout in­side the Pow­er Play overs.

Skip­per Ja­son Hold­er first got Sim­mons to play too ear­ly to a slow­er ball and spoon it to Reifer at mid-on off the last de­liv­ery of the sec­ond over. Hold­er then brought on medi­um-pac­er Har­ry Gur­ney ear­li­er than usu­al and he re­ward­ed him by de­ceiv­ing Nar­ine with a slow­er ball, the open­er blast­ing his un­con­trolled shot high in­to the night sky where wick­et-keep­er Shai Hope took an easy catch be­hind the wick­et as TKR were re­duced to 19-2.

Ramdin and Col­in Munro then shared in a 35-run run part­ner­ship be­fore Munro in­ex­plic­a­bly gave his hand away. With dan­ger­ous leg-spin­ner Hay­den Walsh Jr, who bagged ca­reer-best fig­ures of 5-19 off TKR in the first of their two meet­ings in the round-robin phase, Munro moved out­side his off stump and tried his re­verse sweep off the last ball of the sev­enth over. But Munro was nev­er in con­trol of the shot, top-edged it and of­fered an easy catch to Nurse at third man as TKR stut­tered to 54-3.

Things got even worse two overs lat­er when Nurse got in­to the act, in­duc­ing a thin edge from Bra­vo which wick­et­keep­er Hope snapped up as the home side's im­plo­sion be­gan at 62-4. Nurse was not yet done ei­ther, as in his very next over he got the ex­pe­ri­enced Ramdin to hole out to Hold­er at long-on to si­lence the home fans, TKR now on a wob­bly 81-5.

But just as Prasan­na and Pol­lard were re­gain­ing some ad­van­tage for TKR with a breezy 41-run part­ner­ship, Walsh struck the biggest blow of the match in the 16th over. Pol­lard mist­imed a pull off Hold­er but man­aged to get it in­to the mid­wick­et re­gion and took off for a run. Go­ing back for a sec­ond, how­ev­er, he was stopped by Prasan­na, as Walsh picked up clean­ly run­ning in from the bound­ary. Walsh then got a quick re­lay back to Hope and he broke the stumps be­fore Pol­lard could get back in­to his crease.

If the air hadn't been sucked out the venue then, it was when Walsh got Sear­les (1) to hole out to Hold­er on the long-on bound­ary to leave TKR 129-7.

And af­ter Har­ry Gur­ney sent back Chris Jor­dan (5) in the 19th over to leave TKR at 147-8, Reifer put the fi­nal nail in TKR's cof­fin with his dou­ble strike.

But TKR have on­ly them­selves to blame for the stun­ning loss as ear­li­er, Tri­dents ini­tial­ly rode their luck as Jonathan Charles got a life off the very first ball of the match from medi­um-pac­er Sear­les. Giv­en the start over spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein and then sur­pris­ing­ly al­so giv­en the new ball, Sear­les in­duced a thick edge from Charles first up. Wick­et-keep­er De­nesh Ramdin dived to his right in front of Pol­lard, who was at first slip but grassed the gold­en chance.

Charles' charmed life con­tin­ued in the third over when on 11, he mis­cued an at­tempt­ed flick shot off Sear­les and mis­cued it high in­to the air. How­ev­er, he breathed a sigh of re­lief as long-on Chris Jor­dan and long-off Lendl Sim­mons let the ball drop in be­tween them as nei­ther called for the catch.

De­spite this, the TKR bowlers kept things tight in­side the Pow­er Play and left-arm or­tho­dox spin­ner Khary Pierre still got an ear­ly break­through in the fifth over when he knocked back Alex Hales' leg stump as he went for a sweep and missed, Tri­dents at 27-1.

Pierre struck an­oth­er vi­tal blow in the ninth over to re­duce the Tri­dents to 50-2. Hav­ing been hit for a six by Shak­ib Al Hasan off his fourth ball, the Bangladeshi all-rounder charged down to the last ball of the over and skied it high in­to the air to­wards mid-on. Run­ning back and with the ball com­ing over his shoul­der, Pierre took a bril­liant re­turn catch div­ing for­ward to dis­miss Al Hasan for 18.

The vis­i­tors were dealt an un­for­tu­nate blow in the 12th over when JP Du­miny was forced to re­tire hurt with a strained ham­string. To com­pound things, Charles' luck ran out the very next ball when he tried to mus­cle an Ali Khan de­liv­ery over mid-off but couldn't get the pow­er in the shot and was caught by Jor­dan for 35 as Tri­dents were set fur­ther back at 74-3, which was ef­fec­tive­ly 74-4 due to Du­miny's de­par­ture.

But Jor­dan struck a vi­tal blow in the 15th over with a cru­cial dou­ble strike. First, he pro­duced a slow­er first ball which Carter chipped back to­wards him. On his fol­low through, Jor­dan dived bril­liant­ly to his left to pluck the ball just be­fore it hit the wick­et. He then got Tri­dents skip­per Hold­er (1) to hole out to Munro on the deep square leg bound­ary as Tri­dents stut­tered to 92-5, now with no prospect of Du­miny re­turn­ing to the crease.

Khan then got Shai Hope to hole out to Pol­lard at ex­tra cov­er as the Tri­dents were re­duced to 112-6 in the 18th over.

But tailen­ders Reifer and Nurse then blazed 42 off the last two overs thanks to some undis­ci­plined bowl­ing by Jor­dan and Khan, al­though the wet ball did not help their cause. Both Reifer and Nurse fin­ished un­beat­en on 24 at the close and their ef­fort proved just enough to give the Tri­dents the im­pe­tus they need­ed to put wa­ter in the TKR's eyes.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

BAR­BA­DOS TRI­DENTS 160-6 (20) (John­son Charles 35, Ray­mon Reifer 24*, Ash­ley Nurse 24*, Shai Hope 23, Khary Pierre 2/25, Ali Khan 2/36, Chris Jor­dan 2/40) v TRIN­BA­GO KNIGHT RID­ERS 148 all out (19.3) (Seekkuge Pras­sana 51, Kieron Pol­lard 23, De­nesh Ramdin 21, Ash­ley Nurse 2/14, Ray­mon Reifer 2/13, Hay­den Walsh Jr 2/33, Har­ry Gur­ney 2/31)

Re­sult: BAR­BA­DOS TRI­DENTS WON BY 12 RUNS

Man-of-the-match: ASH­LEY NURSE (BT)