Chadwick Walton and Luke Ronchi finally showed up to the biggest Party in the cricket when they helped steer the Guyana Amazon Warriors to an 8-wicket redemption victory over the Barbados Tridents on Friday evening when the Hero Caribbean Premier League continued in Barbados.
Playing at the Kensington Oval, the Warriors turned the tables and were able to secure a win on the host’s turf, a fitting comeback to the defeat suffered at the hands of the Tridents in Guyana, earlier in the season.
Warriors won the toss and gave the home side the opportunity to bat first. They posted 165-7 in their innings but it proved a cake-walk for the visitors who reach 167-2 with 3.2 overs to spare.
This win has taken Guyana to 10 points and the top of the league once again, alongside Jamaica who are second with a lower Net Run Rate (NRR). Meanwhile, the Tridents have been condemned to their fourth straight home loss and still sit at the bottom of the points table with four points.
The chase went all Guyana’s way, starting with Ronchi and Walton putting up the highest opening partnership of the tournament of 96 before it was broken on the first ball of the 10th over by Ashley Nurse.
Walton slammed 43 from 34 balls, picking up five boundaries in the process. This meant the arrival of Shimron Hetmyer with Warriors needing 70 for victory from 65 balls.
The brilliant young talent took just a few balls to settle and regain his confidence prior to him commencing work. He blasted Mohammad Irfan into the long on boundary, reminiscent of the first match and continued the onslaught off Nurse, dragging the equation down to 44 from 53 balls.
Ronchi reached the 50-run landmark from just 26 deliveries and was able to play a bit more freely with Hetmyer accelerating the scoring rate at the other end.
Needing 20 from 33, Hetmyer (30) brought to an end to what could have been an easily unbeaten innings when he was caught on the long on boundary by a terrific piece of fielding from Steve Smith. He cracked three sixes and a four in his 20-ball stay.
Cameron Delport (14*) and Ronchi (67*) were able to comfortably bring home the win for Guyana after that. Ronchi was eventually adjudged man-of-the-match for his entertaining 40-ball innings in which he pummeled five fours and three sixes.
Earlier in the night, the Tridents had a subtle start but lost Martin Guptil (8) cheaply with the score on 19 as Sohail Tanvir struck in the third over. Dwayne Smith blasted a quick-fire 28 but held out to Hetmyer on the deep square leg boundary off the bowling of Roshon Primus.
Suddenly, Guyana had some fire in the attack after Primus removed Hashim Amla (2) the next ball, but the middle order was able to take charge and stage the recovery from 39 – 3, three balls into the sixth over.
It was much of the same from Steve Smith and Shai Hope in the middle as they asserted themselves with well calculated shots and good communication between the wickets. Hope took 24 deliveries to pile 34 onto the score before being run out by a brilliant piece of work by Primus and the keeper Ronchi. Tridents were 89 – 4.
Nicholas Pooran finally stepped up to the plate an unloaded a fantastic display of shots. Smith and Pooran featured in a 71-run partnership up until the Australian departed for 40 with the score on 160. Five runs later, Pooran’s 27-ball innings came to an end thanks to Imran Tahir who picked up his first wicket.
Jason Holder faced two deliveries then became Tahir’s second wicket in the final over as the Tridents fell about 15 runs short of their projected total.
Tahir, Tanvir and Primus each finished with three wickets for the Warriors.
