Hashim Amla’s good form in the Caribbean continued as his 64 guided the Trinbago Knight Riders to victory over the Guyana Amazon Warriors.
It was his third fifty in five games. It was only the defending champions’ second victory of the campaign, while the Amazon Warriors suffered their first defeat after winning four on the trot.
The Riders struggled to 151, but their bowlers rose to the task magnificently, with leg-spinner Anton Devcich (2-17) and off-break bowler Sunil Narine (2-25) particularly effective in cutting off the run-flow and setting up a seven-run win.
Amla’s latest effort, which earned him the Man of the Match award, was more sedate, coming off 54 balls with six fours, but it anchored an innings which struggled to 113-3 in 17.2 overs. It took some explosive batting from Dwayne Bravo, who hammered 25 off eight balls (1×4, 3×6), supported by Umar Akmal (23 off 22), to reach a defendable total.
Devcich made sure the Warriors never got going, removing Dwayne Smith (0) and Chirs Lynn (21) in the first five overs with 25 on the board. After his first three overs, he had 2-6. Only Martin Guptill overcame the conditions to pile up 50 off 40 balls, Bizarrely, 28 of those came from five shots, with one four and four sixes, indicating the difficulty of dominating the bowling.
