Barbados Tridents win CPLT20 title with a rain-marred win over Guyana Amazon Warriors

Barbados Tridents skipper Kieron Pollard holds the CPL trophy

Barbados Tridents have won the second edition of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) T20 after beating Guyana Amazon Warriors in the final on Saturday by 8 runs as per D/L method.

The Tridents, who were inserted to bat by the Amazon Warriors, got off to a shaky start with left-arm seamer Krishmar Santokie dismissing opening batsman William Perkins for a duck in the very first over of the innings.

Things went from bad to worse when Jason Holder, who was promoted to No.3 in the order as a pinch-hitter, fell for a golden duck to a yorker from Santokie, leaving the Tridents in a precarious position at 8/2. Holder’s wicket brought the experienced Pakistan all-rounder Shoaib Malik, who along with Dwayne Smith had to do a rebuilding job, to the crease.

The two of them went about their business serenely and punished the bad balls when they came along to take the team to 48/2 at the end of the Powerplay. Just when the momentum was starting to shift towards the batting team, rain intervened and took the players off the field for a brief duration.

But the interruption did not seem to affect Smith and Malik as they continued putting pressure on the Amazon Warriors’ bowlers by scoring ones and twos consistently with the odd boundary in between. Smith reached his half-century off 44 balls with a single off Mohammad Hafeez’s offspin and was looking to move up a few gears in order to notch up a competitive total on the board. Right on cue, Sunil Narine dismissed Smith with a delivery that was there to be hit, but Smith could only manage to swat it straight down the throat of Martin Guptill at the long-on boundary.

Kieron Pollard fell off the very next delivery from Narine as he top-edged a tossed up delivery on off-stump to Narine, who took a good low catch on his follow-through, leaving the Tridents in a bit of strife once again at 96/4.

Malik, one of Tridents’ overseas recruits, displayed his maturity as he didn’t look to many too risks in the end overs and, by scoring 55* off 42 balls, ensured that the Tridents got to a defendable total of 152 in their 20 overs, when there was a serious risk of their innings totally falling apart at one stage.

Shoaib Malik won the Man of the Match award in the final for his knock of 55* off 42 balls

The Amazon Warriors, in their run chase, would’ve been hoping to see their Kiwi star Martin Guptill make a meaningful contribution, but that wasn’t to be as Guptill was clean bowled for 7 off the bowling of Kyle Mayers. The Warriors never managed to build any momentum at any point of their run chase as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

With Hafeez and Jimmy Neesham falling in the 12th over to leave the Warriors at 76/4, their chances of chasing down 153 looked all but over. The Warriors skipper Denesh Ramdin and Chris Barnwell, though, gave them a semblance of hope by taking 15 runs off the 14th over of the innings and brought the required run rate down to a manageable 11 per over off the last 5 overs.

With the game nicely poised and a close finish in prospect, rain unfortunately intervened for the 3rd time, and the result had to be decided by the D/L method, a really pitiful way for the tournament to come to an end. The Tridents, however, were deserved winners having been top of the table at the end of the group stage.

Shoaib Malik was awarded the man-of-the-match for his crucial and much-needed half-century while Lendl Simmons, the leading run-scorer in this year’s tournament with 446 runs, took home the man-of-the-series award.

Brief Scores:

Barbados Tridents – 152/6 in 20 overs (Dwayne Smith 59, Shoaib Malik 55*; Krishmar Santokie 3/19)

beat

Guyana Amazon Warriors – 107/4 in 15.5 overs (Mohammad Hafeez 28, Lendl Simmons 20; Jason Holder 2/18)

by 8 runs (D/L method)