The Trinbago Knight Riders kept their Caribbean Premier League campaign alive with a nine wicket win over the Antigua & Barbuda Falcons in the Eliminator match.
The Falcons had a brilliant partnership of 108 between Andries Gous and Amir Jangoo but a late flurry of wickets saw the Knight Riders keep them to a total they could chase. The stars for the Trinidadian franchise were Nicholas Pooran and Alex Hales who both made fifties as the Knight Riders won with relative ease.
In the Falcons innings, Jangoo
and Gous both fell within the space of two balls shortly after passing their fifties. Both batters fell to the bowling of Usman Tariq who was once again miserly with his bowling, claiming 2/19 off his four overs. The Falcons went from 129/1 with four overs to go to 161/8 at the end of their innings as Saurabh Netravalkar and Andre Russell picked up wickets at the death.
The Falcons would have been disappointed to not post a bigger target given the platform they had set. However, when Colin Munro, the Knight Riders leading run scorer going into this match, fell early to the bowling of Rahkeem Cornwall there was hope that they could claim victory. But from the point of the Munro wicket to the end of the match it was the Hales and Pooran show as the two made light work of the Falcons total.
No Falcons bowler found a way to keep the scoring under control by the halfway stage of the chase the equation had come down to just over a run a ball needed. With the pressure of the big game fading Hales and Pooran controlled the chase brilliantly to keep their dreams of a first CPL title since 2020 alive.
Pooran finished on 90 and Hales on 54 with both batters not out at the end of the innings in an unbroken second wicket partnership worth 143. These two players showing this sort of form as the knockout stages gets underway is a real boost for the Knight Riders who came into this game in the back of three consecutive losses.
This loss means the Falcons will head home having made the knockout stages for the first time in their history. The Knight Riders will now face the loser of the Qualifier 1 match between Guyana Amazon Warriors and Saint Lucia Kings which takes place at the Guyana National Stadium in Providence on Wednesday night.
