Trinidad: A clinical run chase from the Trinbago Knight Riders propelled them past Guyana Amazon Warriors at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba, Trinidad, and into the 2017 Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) final.
Chasing a competitive score of 159 runs, an 85-run partnership between Colin Munro and Darren Bravo made it look easy. The Knight Riders will play St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in today’s final at the same venue.
Scores: Amazon Warriors 159-6 (20 overs); Knight Riders 160-4 (18 overs)
The Knight Riders innings got off to a terrible start when Sunil Narine was dismissed first ball — his fourth duck of the season — trapped lbw by an in swinging yorker from Sohail Tanvir. The Knight Riders promoted Hamza Tariq to bat at number three, but he could only manage 10 off 13 before being caught behind off Rayad Emrit. Thanks largely to Munro — who was fortunate to be dropped twice — the Knight Riders reached 42 for 2 after six overs.
In a wonderful display of counter-attacking batting, the pair of Munro and Bravo slashed the required run rate from 8.28 to 6.46 by the time the latter was eventually dismissed. Munro had been the aggressor in the PowerPlay but with Bravo he played a supporting role, as his partner’s muscular power cleared the ropes four times. It was indicative of the nature of the partnership that Bravo dared to take on Rashid Khan and twice hit leg side sixes, alleviating pressure right at the moment when Amazon Warriors wanted to apply it the most.
Munro finished with a steady 57 not out off 51 balls and the Knight Riders reached the target with an impressive 12 balls to spare.
Earlier in the evening, after being put in to bat by Knight Riders, Amazon Warriors’ explosive top three of Sohail Tanvir, Chadwick Walton and Luke Ronchi were kept unusually quiet in the PowerPlay. The Knight Riders bowled five different bowlers in the first five overs of the innings, which didn’t allow the batsmen to settle. At the end of the PowerPlay the Amazon Warriors were 33 for 1 with Tanvir the man dismissed, trapped lbw by Narine.
It took two brilliant balls to dismiss the two key batsmen, Walton and Ronchi. First a wicked inswinging and dipping yorker from Dwayne Bravo uprooted Ronchi’s leg stump, and then a drifting knuckle ball beat Walton’s outside edge and caused him to overbalance, with Dinesh Ramdin whipping off the bails. When Jason Mohammed slapped a wide slower ball from Javon Searles to cover, the Amazon Warriors were 92 for 4 with just 5.5 overs remaining in the innings.
