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With 16 needed off the last over on Friday, Dwaine Pretorius powered three fours off Mohammad Amir’s first five balls and a six off the last.
The maximum took the Guyana Amazon Warriors total to 171, three more than the 168 for 6 the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons had managed in their innings.
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That meant another morale-sapping loss—by three wickets this time instead of one. And it meant that, for the second successive match in the Republic Bank CPL 2024 at the Vivian Richards Ground in Antigua, the ABF had been edged out of the points off the last ball.
Saying that he was “just really happy and pleased”, GAW skipper Imran Tahir observed that the win “showed our character.”
“We have Keemo Paul,” he added. “We have batting till number 9. Even our #9 came in and hit a six tonight.”
“We kept losing wickets,” he went on, before thanking the fans for their support, “but we showed our character and proved we can overcome any challenge.”
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In sharp contrast after ABF’s second gut-wrenching loss, captain Chris Green said he had “a sick feeling in the stomach”. Still, he tried to put a brave face on it, saying that he was “incredibly proud of the way we fought, got ahead of the game”.
Calling Amir “one of the best fast bowlers in the world”, who has “had so much success in the CPL,” he opined that, “in the next few matches, he will probably take a lot of wickets and not concede many runs.”
Asked to explain why they had lost, he said he did not know.
“Maybe five to ten runs short,” he suggested sagely, wisely declining to cite the catch substitute fielder Hayden Walsh Jr grassed off Fabian Allen at extra-cover when Romario Shepherd was on one. Or his own botched effort to complete a difficult catch on the fence offered by Shai Hope in the previous over.
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Asked to bat by Tahir, the Falcons sailed along merrily until Gudakesh Motie (4-0-25-3) intervened.
The West Indies left-hand finger-spinner, first called up in the tenth over, claimed three quick wickets in his first three overs to peg the Falcons back.
From 61 for 1 at the end of the powerplay, they only managed to get to 117 for 5 at the end of the 15th. Fakar Zaman’s stop-start 40 off 33 balls was the major individual contribution at that point and the biggest partnership the second-wicket 74 stand he shared with Kofi James (37).
Once Man-of-the-Match Motie came off, though, the Falcons capitalized. The sixth-wicket pair of Imad Wasim (40, 21b, 2×6, 4×4) and Fabian Allen (11 off 15) combined to add 51 off the last five overs.
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One more maximum, even one more boundary, as their skipper suggested, might well have been enough to see them home. Instead, they failed to take full advantage of their good start and GAW made them pay.
Ramanullah Gurbaz (20) did the early lifting. The powerplay yielded a modest 41 runs for the loss of two wickets. Six overs later, both the score and the number of wickets lost had doubled.
Imad Wasim (2/28) scalped Shimron Hetmyer and Shamar Springer, (2/42), expensive and less effective than in Match One, bowled Azam Khan almost literally neck and crop. The physiotherapist was required to escort him off the field.
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Hope (41) was still there but just warming to the task. Allen sent back Paul at the start of over #15, leaving the required run-rate almost 12. And when, off the last ball of the same over, Shepherd got a life, the muscular allrounder celebrated with 32 off just 16 balls, including four savagely struck sixes.
Replacing Shepherd in the middle of the 19th over with 22 still needed, Shamar Joseph smote his third ball over deep square-leg.
Pretorius was left with a straightforward task: get 16 off six balls for the win. Like St Kitts and Nevis’ Anrich Nortje on Thursday, he served up a second heavy dose of heartbreak off the last ball.
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ABF play twice in the next few days—against Barbados Royals on Sunday and St Lucia Kings on Monday.
“We could so easily be sitting here two from two or one from two,” Green told the post-match interviewer. “But, unfortunately, we are none from two.”
“We move forward from here,” he went on. “[…] We have played some really good cricket. Still eight games left and, if we apply our learnings, it will put us in a good place later on.”
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As things stand, though, they will simply be hoping they can get on the board before the Warriors are next in action—against St Kitts and Nevis on Wednesday.
Summarised scores
Toss: Guyana Amazon Warriors
Antigua and Barbuda Falcons: 168 for 6 (20 overs) Fakar Zaman 40, Imad Wasim 40, Kofi James 37; Gudakesh Motie 3/25.
Guyana Amazon Warriors: 171 for 7 (20 overs) Shai Hope 41, Ramanullah Gurbaz 31, Romario Shepherd 32, Dwaine Pretorius 20*; Imad Wasim 2/28, Chris Green 2/32, Shamar Springer 2/42.
Man-of-the-Match: Gudakesh Motie
Result: Guyana Amazon Warriors win by 3 wickets
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Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970’s.
He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.
