The Trinbago Knight Riders put in a superb team performance to crush the Guyana Amazon Warriors by eight wickets with time to spare.
Trinbago won the toss in Tarouba and sent the Amazons in to bat. Ali Khan brought the stadium to life immediately by knocking Durban-born Cameron Delport’s off-stump out the ground off the first ball of the innings.
Luke Ronchi (44 off 35 balls, six fours, one six) and Shimron Hetmyer (15 off 11) added 52 off 37 balls for the second wicket, but aside from Jason Mohammed (24 off 23 balls), none of their teammates made it into the twenties as the Amazon innings closed on 147-9 off their 20 overs.
All the Trinbago bowlers restricted the Amazon batsmen to less than eight runs an over, with Khan (1-20, econ 5.00) the tightest. Chief destroyers of the Amazon batsmen were Khary Pierre (3-29, econ 7.25) and Dwayne Bravo (2-30, econ 7.50).
Brendon McCullum and Denesh Ramdin got the Trinbago innings off to a flying start, adding 52 off 40 balls before McCullum fell for 39 off 24 balls. With the pressure easing on Trinbago, Ramdin and Durban-born Colin Munro put together a comfortable 35 off 30 balls, with the match being put to bed 15 balls early thanks to a lightning-quick undefeated stand of 47 between Munro and Colin Ingram that came off just 21 balls. Munro contributed 36 of those runs off just 16 balls as Trinbago won by eight wickets.
Imran Tahir played a lone hand with the ball for the Amazons, restricting Trinbago to just 17 runs off his four overs (econ 4.25) in a brave attempt to fight it out to the death.
Munro’s innings of 68 not out was sublime, coming off just 39 balls (six fours, three sixes, S/R 174.35), but Pierre picked up the Player of the Match honours for snuffing the life out of the Amazon top order to set up the comfortable run chase for his teammates.
Munro was named Player of the Tournament after scoring 567 runs in the season (ave 51.54, S/R 140.34), which is the highest season total in the history of the CPL.
Photos: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/Getty Images
