By Pamela Ramcharan
WITH two balls to spare, the Trinbago Knight Riders defeated Guyana Amazon Warriors by four wickets in the first match of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2020 tournament.
Played at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy on Tuesday, the match was delayed due to rain but got underway at 11:30am, reduced to 17 overs per side.
TKR won the toss and sent GAW in to bat with openers Brandon King and Chandrapaul Hemraj.
Both openers fell cheaply with King falling for a duck and Hemraj caught and bowled by Sunil Narine for three runs.
Ross Taylor and Shimron Hetmyer were next in and built momentum to keep the scoreboard ticking.
Taylor was the third to go as he was bowled by Narine for 33, his second wicket of the match.
Next man out was Nicholas Pooran who fell for 18, off the bowling of Jayden Seales.
Sherfane Rutherford was next to go with a duck, off the bowling of Dwayne Bravo.
Hetmyer closed with a top score of 63, leaving TKR to chase 145 runs in their 17 overs.
Narine, who got two wickets, was magnificent with the bat as he topscored with a well-played 50 runs from 28 balls. He was named Man of the Match.
Darren Bravo was steady with the bat to get to 30 runs but he fell to the bowling of Naveen-ul-Haq.
It was Dwayne Bravo who hit the winning runs bringing TKR over the line to 145 runs with two balls remaining in the innings.
The picks of the GAW bowlers were Naveen-ul-Haq and Imran Tahir who took two wickets a piece.
The next match, between the Barbados Tridents and St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, will be played at the same venue, starting 5:30pm.
Trinbago Knight Riders 147/6 (Narine 50, Darren Bravo 30, Munro 17; Naveen 2/21, Tahir 2/40, Paul 1/21, Shepherd 1/30) beat Guyana Amazon Warriors 144/5 (Hetmyer 63*, Taylor 33, Pooran 18, Paul 15*; Narine 2/19, Ali Khan 1/21, Seales 1/24) by four wickets.
