With scintillating spin bowling by left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie and equally brilliant death bowling by medium pacer Odean Smith, Guyana Amazon Warriors overcame a large number of dropped catches in the field to topple second-placed St Lucia Kings by 17 runs. With this win, they have now gathered eight points from eight games and are now knocking on the doors of a semi-final berth in the Caribbean Premier League 2021.
Chasing a target of 152 set up by the Warriors, the Kings were in for a shock as Motie chipped away with wickets by being as miser as he could with runs. He got the crucial men in skipper Faf du Plessis and experienced Samit Patel out and conceded only 12 runs from his four overs, bowling a staggering 17 dot balls in the process.
Imran Tahir bowled in tandem with Motie even as Roston Chase and Tim David formed what could have transpired to be a match-changing partnership thanks to the dropped catches in the field. However, the Warriors bowlers kept the run rate in check and as a result, a false shot was induced by Naveen-Ul-Haq to send Chase packing in the 18th over.
Having added 75 runs with Chase and with Kings still requiring 34 off 16 balls to win, the onus was on Singaporean import David to see the Kings home. Smith though had other ideas in mind as after a very good 18th over by Naveen, he bowled a magnificent 19th over getting rid of Keemo Paul and Jeavor Royal, conceding only three runs in the process.
With 29 needed from the last over and Naveen bowling it, hopes were really low for a Kings’ victory and they lowered more as the team could gather only 10 runs from the first four balls, meaning that they could not get 19 from the last two and eventually lost the game 17 runs.
Earlier in the day, courtesy of Brandon King’s 77 and some late hitting by skipper Nicholas Pooran and Smith, the Warriors managed to reach 151 in their allotted 20 overs. Royal and Wahab Riaz picked two wickets each for the Kings.