If the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents do not get in­to this year’s Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League play­offs they will have an im­plo­sion of epic pro­por­tions on Mon­day night at the Kens­ing­ton Oval to blame for it.

This af­ter one of the most hor­ren­dous bat­ting dis­plays thus in the tour­na­ment saw them fall to a five-run loss to the strug­gling Ja­maica Tallawahs in a match it was eas­i­er to win than lose on their home turf.

Af­ter re­strict­ing the Tallawahs to just 127 in their 20 overs, one of the low­est to­tals this sea­son, the Tri­dents bats­men sim­ply pan­icked af­ter find­ing scor­ing slow in the first 10 overs and col­lapsed to the spin of Im­ran Khan (3/19) and medi­um pace of Shamar Springer (3/32) in the sec­ond half of their in­nings to be re­strict­ed 122 for nine.

The re­sult caused a ma­jor shake-up in the bot­tom half of the six-team ta­ble, as the Tallawahs joined the Tri­dents in joint fourth spot on four points. Lead­ers Guyana Ama­zon War­riors had al­ready qual­i­fied for the play­offs with their max­i­mum 12 points go­ing in­to Mon­day night, while the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (9 pts) re­mained sec­ond and the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots (8 pts) third.

How­ev­er, it was Man-of-the-match Springer who blew the game wide open to make the Tallawahs win pos­si­ble. Brought on in the 13th over by skip­per Chad­wick Wal­ton to take wick­ets, Springer got im­me­di­ate re­sults when he re­moved Jonathan Carter. Carter tried an up­per­cut to a ris­ing slow­er de­liv­ery out­side the off stump from Springer, didn’t get the tim­ing right and the ball looped up to to­wards George Work­er, who took a well-judged catch. Carter was gone for 17 as the Tri­dents slumped to 74 for four.

The home fans weren’t as con­cerned just yet but Springer struck again in his next over, re­mov­ing the nor­mal­ly dan­ger­ous John­son Charles, caught at deep mid-wick­et by Dwayne Smith for an un­char­ac­ter­is­tic 35-ball 31 with just three fours.

Skip­per Ja­son Hold­er, who would have watched on as his team­mates got them­selves out, then in­ex­plic­a­bly tried a wild pull shot at leg-break spe­cial­ist Khan, top-edged it and was tak­en by a div­ing wick­et-keep­er Glenn Phillips at square leg.

Hold­er was out for just two and the Tri­dents now in re­al trou­ble at 81 for six in the 16th over and their best bats­men back in the pavil­ion with 47 runs need­ed then off 29 balls.

Things on­ly got worse from there. Springer then pushed a quick­er bounc­er through to Ash­ley Nurse (4) who was late on his pull shot and gloved one be­hind, where the ball was glee­ful­ly ac­cept­ed by Phillips as the Tri­dents slumped to 84-7.

Khan then got the bur­ley Roshon Primus (2) to run down the wick­et go­ing for a big dri­ve out the ground which he missed and was stumped by Phillips as Tri­dents im­plod­ed to 90-8

Still, some late big hit­ting hero­ics from Ray­mon Reifer gave the Tri­dents some hope.

Reifer hit Springer for a six and two fours in the 19th over, which pro­duced 15 runs, to take Tri­dents in­to the fi­nal over need­ing an­oth­er 15 for a come-from-be­hind win. Af­ter Sandeep Lamich­hane got a sin­gle off medi­um-pac­er Smith, who was sur­pris­ing­ly giv­en the last over re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, Reifer hit the sec­ond ball for six and the next one for two. How­ev­er, Smith out­foxed him with a slow­er fourth ball out­side the off stump and he could on­ly reach as far as Springer at deep cov­er with the shot. Reifer hit a 12-ball 26 in­clud­ing two fours and two max­i­mums and his in­nings on­ly showed the recog­nised bats­men the fol­ly of their ways ear­li­er.

Smith then bowled two dot balls to Lamich­hane to seal a win the Tallawahs des­per­ate­ly need­ed.

Ear­li­er, Tri­dents got a bril­liant start when Hold­er re­moved Tallawahs tal­is­man Chris Gayle for just one run. Hold­er de­liv­ered a ball lined on off stump and com­ing back at him and Gayle tried to play a cut shot al­though cramped for room and suc­ceed­ed on­ly in chop­ping it on­to his stumps.

Chad­wick Wal­ton was in next but he didn't last very long be­fore he was dis­missed in the fifth over thanks to a bril­liant piece of field­ing from Ash­ley Nurse. Wal­ton ran down to leg-break spe­cial­ist Sandeep Lamich­hane's sec­ond de­liv­ery and was al­most yorked but man­aged to squeeze the ball to­wards the slip re­gion. How­ev­er, Nurse dived bril­liant­ly to his right to pluck the ball out of the air just be­fore it hit the turf on its way to what would have been at least two runs as Tallawahs were re­duced to 35-2.

With no An­dre Rus­sell in the line-up, there was now no one to work with Glenn Phillips to ini­ti­ate a re­cov­ery for the Tallawahs. But Tri­dents did not take their foot off the Tallawahs' necks ei­ther as JP Du­miny and Lamich­hane com­bined to re­move George Work­er (6) and Dwayne Smith (1) in the eighth and ninth overs re­spec­tive­ly as the Tallawahs slumped to 55-5.

And when Phillips him­self was out, caught be­hind by John­son Charles off medi­um-pac­er Ray­mon Reifer for a well-played 41 with five fours and a six, it was a ques­tion of how much the Tallawahs tailen­ders could muster for them. They man­aged 50 runs and thanks to their bowlers lat­er on, it proved just enough.

JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS 127 all out (20) (Glenn Phillip 41, Ra­maal Lewis 27*, Sandeep Lamich­hane 2/17, Ja­son Hold­er 2/21, Ray­mon Reifer 2/31) v BAR­BA­DOS TRI­DENTS 122-9 (20) (John­son Charles 31, Ray­mon Reifer 26, Im­ran Khan 3/19, Shamar Springer 3/32, Dwayne Smith 2-22)

Re­sult: TRI­DENTS WON BY 5 RUNS

Man-of-the-match: Shamar Springer (JT)