RBCPL24: Hetmyer, Joseph steal show for dominant Warriors against STKNP

Shamar Joseph and Shimron Hetmyer dominated the proceedings at Providence in Guyana on Friday when the Guyana Amazon Warriors beat the already eliminated Saint Kitts and Nevis Patriots by 30 runs.

But Ryan John was in the spotlight. Not in a good way.

In the 20th and final over of Match 21 of the 2024 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL), the right-arm seamer was taken for 24 runs by the Guyana Amazon Warriors’ Romario Shepherd. From a shaky 113 for 8 at the end of the 19th  over, the score rose to a final 137.

Earlier in the seventh over, when the score was only 39 for 3 and man-of-the-match Shimron Hetmyer on 30, he tried to pump Anrich Nortje down the ground. The ball went straight to John at mid-on. He grassed it.

When Hetmyer was finally out LBW to Tabraiz Shamsi in the 12th over, the score was 83 for 5.

Hetmyer, on 63, had scored a shade under 80% of GAW’s runs.

What might have been?

“The only thing going through my mind was just stay positive,” Hetmyer told the post-match interviewer. “I’m just enjoying my cricket a lot more now.”

He called his knock “brave” and said he had no words to “explain how great it is to play at home, knowing you have the support of everyone”.

Hetmyer fell to Shamsi in the same over in which the left-handed wrist-spinner had Moeen Ali caught by spinner Ashmead Nedd on the midwicket boundary.

After that, the momentum slowed to a crawl.

Nedd returned to claim another pair of wickets in his third over,  leaving GAW very shaky on 93 for 7. And, with only 13 runs added, John removed Dwaine Pretorius.

But in the 20th and final over of the innings, the right-arm seamer was taken for 24 runs by Romario Shepherd. A very shaky 113 for 8 at the end of the 19th over had become a defensible 137.

The last of Shepherd’s three final-over sixes passed through the hands of Dominic Drakes at long-on. The left-hander was also at long-on at 92 for 5 in the 14th over when he shelled a high catch offered by Pretorius off Shamsi.

Drakes’ two overs cost 24 runs. With the bat, he made three off seven balls. With the bat, John contributed a solitary boundary off Joseph before the bowler trapped him right in front two balls later.

Nedd’s 4/25 had given the Patriots an opening. Opener Evin Lewis, struggling for runs recently, had been their Hetmyer—contributing more than half of their final total—as he tried to get STKNP through it.

At the start of the day, the attacking opener had only added 29 runs to the unbeaten 100 he scored in the Patriots’ second game in Match 5. But against the defending champions, the hard-hitting left-hander put his shoulder to the wheel.

Perhaps recognising Lewis’ greater vulnerability against spin, Tahir introduced his spinners from over #2 and kept them on until #13.

In over #12, he had himself got rid of Joshua Da Silva to make the score 77 for 4. Although the stingy Moeen, wringing prodigious turn from the track, only conceded a single run off the 13th, Tahir turned back to pace.

The move worked. It broke the potentially dangerous left-handed partnership between Lewis and Rilee Rossouw—albeit via the run-out route.

When the pair attempted to scramble a single off a defensive prod by Lewis, Joseph swooped DJ Bravo-like in his follow-through, gathered the ball and, in one motion, broke the stumps at the batsman’s end.

Rossouw was so short of his ground, no replays were required for the decision.

That dismissal left the Patriots on 91 for 5, needing 46 with five wickets in hand and five overs left. Crucially, Lewis, his eye in now, was still at the crease.

Not for long. He drove loosely at a wide delivery from Pretorius, failed to middle it and skipper Tahir gleefully swallowed the catch at backward point.

After that, Joseph (3/9 off 2.3 overs) disposed of the tail swiftly. Moeen (2/9) was not required and Tahir (2/34) chipped in with the wicket of Nedd.

From 91 for 4 just before Rossouw’s run-out, STKNP had lost six wickets for 16 runs.

The defeated Patriots can be forgiven for not having the heart for their final assignment.

Certainly it would be no surprise to see John and Dominic Drakes, hero of the Patriots’ 2021 final win, left out when they come up against the Trinbago Knight Riders at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba on Sunday evening.

Hetmyer called their own pacer, Joseph, an exceptional, really exciting bowler for his contribution against the Patriots.

“If he keeps doing what he is doing,” the Man-of-the-Match continued, “the sky is the limit for him.”

Joseph will have another chance to prove his teammate right on Saturday evening when GAW take on the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons.

The Falcons’ fate in this 2024 season still hangs by a thread, at Providence. To keep that albeit unenviable status, intact, they must slay another lion in its den—as they did on Thursday evening at the Queen’s Park Oval.

If they achieve that, playoff qualification will remain a mathematical possibility. What seems plausible is that the cricketing gods will smile on them. In 2025.

Summarised scores

Toss: Saint Kitts and Nevis Patriots

Guyana Amazon Warriors: 137 for 8 (20 overs) Shimron Hetmyer 63, Romario Shepherd 34*; Ashmead Nedd 4/25, Tabraiz Shamsi 2/13

St Kitts and Nevis Patriots: 107 all out (18.3 overs) Evin Lewis 49; Shamar Joseph 3/9, Moeen Ali 2/9, Imran Tahir 2/34

Man-of-the-Match: Shimron Hetmyer

Result: Guyana Amazon Warriors win by 30 runs

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Earl Best

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.