SHAMARH BROOKS unbeaten 109 ensures that the Jamaica Tallawahs take on the Barbados Royals in the finals of the Hero 2022 Caribean Premier League at Providence in Guyana on Friday evening from 7 o’clock.
On Wednesday evening, the Tallawahs secured a 37-run victory in qualifier two over the Guyana Amazon Warriors at the same venue that will host the finals on Friday. The partisan home crowd left disappointed.
The Warriors won the toss and opted to field first and that seemed to be an excellent decision after they reduced the Tallawahs to 37/2 in the PowerPlay.
However, Brooks produced one of the all-time great Hero CPL innings to guide the Tallawahs to a season high 226/4. His unbeaten 109 came off 52 balls.
He and Imad Wasim plundered 103 runs from the final five overs to take the game away from the Amazon Warriors.
The chase was always going to be hard going for the Warriors and so it proved. Despite losing Mohammad Amir to injury the Tallawahs bowling unit produced a controlled performance that kept their opponets in check throughout.
Although Keemo Paul produced 54 from 37 balls no one else was able to stay with him to pull off an unlikely heist.
Earlier, Warriors had seemed to be in control of the game when Raymon Reifer was dismissed for 22 to leave the Tallawahs 123/4 with five overs to go. However, Brooks and Wasim launched an unbelievable assault at the back end.
Brooks hit a maiden T20 century whilst Wasim was also unbeaten on 41 from 15 balls to all but secure the Tallawahs a place in the Hero CPL final.
If the Warriors were to chase the 227 to win, they needed a lightning start in the PowerPlay and they got that, putting 62 runs on the board. However, they lost three wickets in the process thereby handing the Tallawahs an advantage going forward.
Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals as the Tallawahs bowlers put the squeeze on the Warriors. Imad Wasim led the bowling unit with 2/25 in the absence of Amir.
The Tallawahs victory means they will now contest their third Hero CPL final and both themselves and the Royals will be looking to secure their third Hero CPL title.
Jamaica Tallawahs 226/4 (Brooks 109*, Wasim 41*; Shepherd 2/43, Tahir 1/34) beat Guyana Amazon Warriors 189/8 (Paul 56, Hope 31; Wasim 2/25, Green 2/40) by 37 runs
