BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - INCLEMENT weather did not dampen the party of the Guyana Amazon Warriors from progressing to the finals of the 2016 Caribbean Premier League, after they defeated the Jamaica Tallawahs by 4 wickets.
Winning the toss on a surface suited for batting, the Warriors inserted their opponents that were looking to break their string of defeats.
Tallawahs captain Chris Gayle, started brightly, blasting a few lusty blows around the ground before his opening partner Chadwick Walton departed off the bowling of Rayad Emrit with the score on 33 inside the power play overs.
The Guyana captain Emrit, who bagged figures of 3 for 30 from his four overs, spearheaded the bowling attack, as his team restricted the big-hitting Chris Gayle to 33, when he had his stumps disturbed by an inswinging delivery from Christopher Barnwell.
Kumar Sangakkara and Rovman Powell then led a fightback as the Jamaicans could only muster a paltry 146 for 8 off their 20 overs.
In reply, the Warriors’ inning was interrupted on numerous occasions by rain, but a quick-fire 21 runs from 13 balls by paceman Sohail Tanvir guided them home.
Cruising at 85 for 3, they lost the next three wickets for 31 runs as the rains came and they pushed in their bit to be ahead on the Duckworth and Lewis calculation.
But a lusty blow from Tanvir in the final over ensured that the Warriors fans would see their team play in the Championship game on Sunday (Aug. 7), while the Tallawahs will be looking to make a few changes in their lineup for their next outing as they await the winner of the game between the St. Lucia Zouks and the Trinbago Knight Riders at the same venue.
Gayle told reporters during the post-match press conference that he was disappointed with the defeat, noting that his Tallawahs team lost to a much stronger Warriors unit.
In commending Guyana, Gayle said: “I thought they played good cricket [and] they have been playing extremely well as a unit. We lost the momentum in Florida but we still tried to give ourselves a chance to go out there and make it to the Finals”.
He stated that he thought that his team fell some 20 runs short of a good total on the batting track and it showed in the way the Guyanese chased down the total.
Tanvir on the other hand, explained that the Guyana camp is jubilant to have made it to yet another finals, adding that it is what they were playing for and “luckily we have crossed the line though it was a close, close finish”.
The game which finished in the early hours of Thursday morning has given his team a good platform in which to win the championship, he noted.
“As a team we are playing good cricket...we lost momentum in between where we lost games and then rebounded in Florida back to back. And this win will definitely give us a lot of confidence going into the finals.”
