A blazing unbeaten 67 from Luke Ronchi has fired Guyana Amazon Warriors to the top of the 2018 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) points table, leapfrogging the franchise past Jamaica Tallawahs and Trinbago Knight Riders.
A fourth successive loss means that Barbados Tridents have fallen to last place on the points table and need to win all their three remaining games to make the CPL play-offs.
Chasing 166 for victory at Kensington Oval, Guyana won in 16.4 overs for the loss of two wickets as Ronchi finished on 67 off 40 balls having hit five fours and three sixes. His 96-run opening stand with Chadwick Walton (43) settled the outcome of the match in 9.1 overs, and the loss of Shemron Hetmyer for 30 was a minor hiccup for Guyana who romped home with Cameron Delport hitting the winning runs with a boundary.
Ronchi’s innings saw him hit two consecutive sixes off Jason Holder during the Powerplay, which ended with Guyana superbly played at 70 without loss. After Walton’s departure, Hetmyer crashed three sixes in the span of four balls to keep the run rate flowing and Ronchi collected another T20 fifty off just 26 balls.
Earlier, Barbados had slumped to 39/3 inside the Powerplay before Steven Smith (40), Shai Hope (34) and Nicholas Pooran (46) featured in half-century stands for the fourth and fifth wickets to get the total to 165/7. For Guyana, Imran Tahir put in another fine performance of 2/21 in four overs.
Brief scores: Guyana Amazon Warriors 168/2 in 16.4 overs (Ronchi 67*, Walton 43) beat Barbados Tridents 165/7 in 20 overs (Pooran 46, Smith 40) by eight wickets