They have at­tend­ed a Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League wed­ding four times be­fore but as brides­maids. How­ev­er, on Sat­ur­day, the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors will be hop­ing they are the ones throw­ing the bou­quet when they bat­tle the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents in the grand fi­nale at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do, from 5 pm.

Last year they turned up at the same venue and saw their am­bi­tions crushed by a ram­pant Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers.

TKR are not in the af­fair this time so man­ag­er Omar Khan’s team will be look­ing to call the tune when the um­pires start play.

War­riors will be hop­ing a fifth time will be lucky and if it is, they will be­come the first team in the his­to­ry of the tour­na­ment to play un­beat­en and lift the tro­phy.

The War­riors will be hop­ing that the lo­cal fans give them the sup­port to go all the way as well.

Nev­er­the­less, skip­per Shoaib Ma­lik is con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry.

“We have played re­al­ly good crick­et to reach this far and we in­tend to fin­ish the job. The boys have kept fo­cussed de­spite the cou­ple days rest and they are look­ing for­ward to play­ing on the main stage. We have a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence on our team and my job is to keep them calm on this big oc­ca­sion,” Ma­lik said on the eve of the match.

Ma­lik, who played for the Tri­dents a cou­ple of years ago, ad­mit­ted he thinks they are go­ing to be tough in the fi­nal.

“You look at their team and they are packed with qual­i­ty play­ers who can win match­es. They have fought hard along the way and they have shown that they can top­ple big teams. We are mind­ful of them and we are go­ing in­to the bat­tle know­ing that once we stick to our plan and ex­e­cute we will get to where we want to be.”

The Tri­dents, who took their first ti­tle back in 2014, iron­i­cal­ly against the War­riors, will al­so be look­ing for an­oth­er lien on the tro­phy.

Cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er, who lost his West In­dies T20 cap­tain­cy just as the com­pe­ti­tion start­ed in Sep­tem­ber, is al­so ea­ger to achieve suc­cess and prove a point.

“The beau­ty of our per­for­mances so far in this tour­na­ment is we've held on in close games. We al­so lost some close games but the ma­jor­i­ty of our games we held our nerve and we came out on top. We've scrapped for a lot of wins. It's not ide­al but I think it shows the char­ac­ter of the side. This is good for us go­ing in­to any fi­nals, know­ing that your team can fight back from dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions,” Hold­er said af­ter the Tri­dents de­throned the TKR with a 12-run win in the semi­fi­nal on Thurs­day night at the same venue.

Hold­er said it was the close­ness of his team, which they worked on as the sea­son pro­gressed, which had brought them this far.

“The dif­fer­ence for us in get­ting this far in the tour­na­ment is stick­ing to­geth­er. We had a few team ac­tiv­i­ties, team din­ners and we've been build­ing a nice fam­i­ly. Hope­ful­ly, the guys can con­tin­ue that, rest up, re­cov­er and come back for the fi­nal on Sat­ur­day."

Rain is not in the fore­cast Sat­ur­day so the ac­tion should not be af­fect­ed. The pitch for this game is al­so ex­pect­ed to be sim­i­lar to the one used on Thurs­day night. This means it will not be easy for bat­ting and play­ers will have to graft for their runs.

A huge crowd is ex­pect­ed for the game as tick­ets were go­ing fast dur­ing the week in the hope the TKR would have been in the fi­nal. Some dis­grun­tled fans were try­ing to sell their tick­ets on so­cial me­dia on Fri­day.

Be­fore the ti­tle match on Sat­ur­day, there will be a T10 game in the women’s se­ries fea­tur­ing the NL­CB Rev­ellers and the Courts Glad­i­a­tors from 12.30 pm. The NL­CB Rev­ellers won the first match by eight wick­ets on Thurs­day.

CPL FI­NAL RE­SULTS OVER THE YEARS

2013 – Ja­maica Tallawahs bt Guyana Ama­zon War­riors by 7 wk­ts

2014 – Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents bt Guyana Ama­zon War­riors by 8 runs.

2015 – T&T Red Steel bt Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents by 20 runs.

2016 – Ja­maica Tallawahs bt Guyana Ama­zon War­riors by 9 wk­ts.

2017 - Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers bt St. Kitts Pa­tri­ots by 3 wk­ts.

2018 – Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers bt Guyana Ama­zon War­riors by 7 wk­ts.

TEAMS

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors: Nico­las Pooran, Shoaib Ma­lik, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Ben Laugh­lin, Chris Green, Keemo Paul, Sher­fane Ruther­ford, Bran­don King, Ro­mario Shep­herd, Odean Smith, Kea­gan Sim­mons, Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj, Veerasam­my Per­maul, An­tho­ny Bram­ble, Clin­ton Pes­tano.

Tri­dents: Alex Hales, Ja­son Hold­er, Shak­ib Al Hasan, Har­ry Gur­ney, John­son Charles, Shai Hope, Ash­ley Nurse, Jonathan Carter, Chemar K Hold­er, Leniko Bouch­er, Roshon Primus, Ray­mon Reifer, Justin Greaves, Joshua Bish­op, Hay­den Walsh.