The Hero Caribbean Premier League 2015 got under way with a rematch of last year’s final as the current champions Barbados Tridents took on the Guyana Amazon Warriors. The Tridents ran out winners thanks primarily to a brilliant all round performance from their captain, Kieron Pollard.
The Amazon Warriors began the game brilliantly. Having lost the toss and being asked to field Marchant De Lange got the game underway with a maiden. This was followed by another tight over from Veerasammy Permaul who conceded just three runs off the second over.
The big hitting began at the start of the third over when Dwayne Smith pulled a glorious six off a short ball from de Lange. Dilshan Munaweera also went aerial off de Lange, hitting a lofted drive for four.
Smith looked to be well set and looking to accelerate when he edged the ball to fine leg and set off for a single that was always risky. It looked an even worse decision to set off for the run when Smith slipped and fell in the middle of the pitch and Shivnarine Chanderpaul threw down the stumps to run him out.
Carter’s aggressive innings got him to 25 off 20 balls before he attempted to hit Narine straight down the ground only to be well caught at long off by Christopher Barnwell. While the wicket was cause for celebration it brought Kieron Pollard to the crease.
Pollard was brutal against every Guyana bowler apart from Narine who once again put together a parsimonious spell, conceding 22 runs off his four overs. While Pollard was drawing all the attention with his aggression at the other end Shoaib Malik carried on where he had left off last season for the Tridents. His 39 off 35 balls held this Barbados batting performance together after the early wickets.
The Tridents could have had the best possible start to their defence of 158 when Lendl Simmons skied a ball from Jason Holder but was dropped by Robin Peterson. Simmons had yet to get off the mark at that point and as the leading run scoring in last year’s event his dismissal could have been vital. As it was it did not prove too costly because he was brilliantly run out in the second over thanks to a direct hit from Holder.
Holder could not be kept out of the game as he played a part in the dismissals of both Chanderpaul and Denesh Ramdin, picking up the wicket of the former and catching the latter.
When Hodge was dismissed LBW by Peterson it was the beginning of the end for the visitors. At 61-5 with just over 10 overs left it was always going to be hard to keep the rate under control. When Peterson went on to pick up the wickets of Barnwell and Narine in the same over the Amazon Warriors were left needing 74 runs to win off 30 balls with only tail end batsmen left.
Some decent late order hitting from de Lange and Permaul got the Amazon Warriors past 100 but the Tridents were worthy winners.
Leave a Reply