RBCPL24: Moeen paces Warriors, as Falcons fail in top four bid

On a Providence pitch that made batting no easy task, defending champions Guyana Amazon Warriors struggled and struggled and then struggled some more.

And then, in Match 23 of the 2024 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL) which they won by 27 runs on Saturday evening, came Moeen Ali.

Actually, he had been there for some time—since the Barbuda Falcons’ Imad Wasim had sent back Shimron Hetmyer to make the score 53 for 4. He just came into his own, suddenly taking a liking to Imad.

Five stout blows. Not quite Kieron Pollard against Akila Dananjiya or Carlos Brathwaite against Ben Stokes.

But close. 4-6-6-6-.-6.

That’s an impressive sequence against any bowler. Against Mr Parsimonious, Imad, it’s positively match-winning—especially when such carnage comes not in the powerplay but at the back end of the innings.

He savaged the Pakistani and with him, his Australian captain and their nine other teammates. When you compute the psychological damage, the value of each boundary is increased by a factor of maybe ten.

His onslaught took his team’s total from 98 for 6 at the end of the 18th to 135 for 7 at the end of the innings.

He was eventually run out trying to steal an impossible run off the penultimate ball. But he had savaged the Pakistani and, with him, his Australian captain and their nine other teammates.

Knowingly, as he readily admitted in his post-match comments.  No pleading not guilty, no attempt to disguise or conceal the mens rea.

The attack was no fluke, Moeen made it clear; it was finely calculated.

“I took Imad down.”

It was the perfect crime, the planning precise and patient, the execution perfect.

“Building a partnership is key and you can go harder in the last couple of overs,” Moeen unabashedly explained, arguing that he “had no choice, had one match-up.

“I knew there was going to be a left-arm spinner, either him or Fabian [Allen], and I had to target [him] because I couldn’t hit anybody else really.”

Guilty as charged.

“I think with the bat I found it really tough,” he told the interviewer. “It was a real struggle…”

Ditto the Falcons batting.

The final 135 always looked likely to be beyond them in the existing conditions. It was not so much scoreboard pressure as the other factors. A turning wicket.

A huge, 15,000-strong partisan crowd, screaming their heads off at every Warriors mini-victory, a four, a six, a dot ball, a catch or a wicket, graveyard silent whenever Falcons seemed to be remotely in the ascendancy.

And the knowledge that one slip-up, one false shot, one indiscretion, one misjudgement could mean the end of what was already a very elusive, illusive even, dream.

In the event, 135 did prove beyond the Falcons. They only reached 108, Kofi James’ 27 (23balls, 1×6, 3×4) the largest individual contribution.

James (K) and Hassan Khan put on 25 for the third wicket as did the eighth-wicket pair of the other James, Joshua, and skipper Chris Green. But when Green dragged Dwaine Pretorius down Shimron Hetmyer’s throat at wide mid-on, it was all over bar the shouting—which, by the way, went through the roof.

A nice little added irony: when, in over #15, Imad was on seven off 17 balls and seemed to be biding his time, planning his revenge, waiting to launch a revenge attack on some perhaps unsuspecting bowler perhaps in over #19, he lost his leg-stump.

The bowler? Moeen, whose final figures read 4-0-9-3—with 18 dot balls!

Saturday evening’s result settles the top four. The wing and the prayer on which the Falcons were hoping to make it into the playoffs were completely destroyed by Moeen’s savage 19th-over attack on Imad.

For a few brief moments, the illusion endured, the dream persisted. All the way to 98 for 6 in the 18th over when Justin Greaves caught the potentially destructive Romario Shepherd off Mohammad Amir.

And then came Moeen, with mayhem on his mind…

The Warriors have two games, victory in which will ensure top-two qualification. The first one comes up on Wednesday against the Barbados Royals, also in Providence.

The second, also in Providence, is Match 30 against TKR on 29 September. That is likely to be a knock down, drag out affair.

Get your popcorn now.

Summarised scores

Toss:  St Kitts and Nevis Patriots

Guyana Amazon Warriors: 135 for 7 (20 overs) Moeen Ali 42, Azam Khan 29; Mohammad Amir 2/15, Imad Wasim 2/39

St Kitts and Nevis Patriots: 108 all out (18.5 overs) Kofi James 27; Moeen Ali 3/9, Dwaine Pretorius 3/9, Imran Tahir 2/40

Man-of-the-Match: Moeen Ali

Result: Guyana Amazon Warriors win by 27 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.