KINGSTON–A star per­for­mance from Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents' cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard with bat, ball and in the field helped to de­ny the Ap­ple­ton Es­tate Ja­maica Tallawahs the chance to re­place their op­po­nents at the top of the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League ta­ble in front of a sell-out crowd at Sabi­na Park on Sat­ur­day.

Kr­ish­mar San­tok­ie, the lead­ing wick­et-tak­er in this year's Hero CPL, bowled a typ­i­cal­ly ac­cu­rate and eco­nom­i­cal first over but Dil­shan Mu­naweera gave the Tri­dents some im­pe­tus plun­der­ing Daniel Vet­tori for 12 runs in the sec­ond.

Open­ing part­ner Dwayne Smith soon got go­ing, latch­ing on­to a ball that San­tok­ie over­pitched and chipped it pow­er­ful­ly for six.

The break­through for the Tallawahs came off Jerome Tay­lor's first ball. His ex­tra pace and bounce was too much for Mu­naweera, who popped an easy catch to, fel­low Sri Lankan, Ma­hela Jayawar­dene and de­part­ed for 18 off 14 balls.

Af­ter the wick­et, Tay­lor and then Rusty Theron start­ed to put the squeeze on the new bats­man Jonathan Carter to re­strict the Tri­dents to 34-1 in the Pow­er­play. The pres­sure told again when Carter (six off 14 balls) pulled Theron straight to Chris Lynn on the deep square leg bound­ary.

Pol­lard joined Smith and to­geth­er they looked to re­build the in­nings. Smith broke the shack­les some­what as the halfway stage ap­proached, cut­ting Vet­tori for the Tri­dents' first bound­ary in six overs.

Just as things were look­ing up for the Tri­dents, a ter­ri­ble mix-up and an in­cred­i­ble throw from San­tok­ie in the deep com­bined to break the part­ner­ship with a run out that left Smith head­ing for the dugout at 27 off 25.

Vet­tori then re­moved Mis­bah-ul-Haq for a dis­ap­point­ing three ball duck be­fore Pol­lard and Ja­son Hold­er (26 from 22) did some re­build­ing.

Pol­lard took the lead in the fi­nal as­sault with a ramp over long leg and then a six and a four off con­sec­u­tive balls from San­tok­ie.

Rain in­ter­rupt­ed the game for about an hour and broke the Tri­dents' mo­men­tum: An­dre Rus­sell knocked out Hold­er's stumps with the first ball af­ter the restart and two balls lat­er Rus­sell had Navin Stew­art caught by Vet­tori.

Pol­lard reach his half-cen­tu­ry off 35 balls in the fi­nal over to take his side to a com­pet­i­tive 146-7 with a last-ball max­i­mum over the wide-mid­wick­et bound­ary.

Tallawahs cap­tain Chris Gayle start­ed in omi­nous fash­ion, top-edg­ing a mas­sive six off the bowl­ing of Hold­er. It was not to be his night how­ev­er, as he smacked a pow­er­ful dri­ve to ex­tra cov­er. Chris Lynn (13) start­ed bright­ly, but chopped on­to his stumps.

Pol­lard then moved him­self to sil­ly point and Ma­hela Jayawar­dene popped the first ball to him where he took a stun­ning re­flex catch. Pe­ter­son claimed his third wick­et in the over when Black­wood was bowled play­ing for turn that wasn't there.

Af­ter los­ing four wick­ets in the Pow­er­play, the Tallawahs looked to re­build through Wal­ton and Bon­ner, but the Tri­dents con­tin­ued to pile on the pres­sure and they need­ed near­ly eight an over from the fi­nal ten.

SCORE

?Ja­maica Tallawahs vs Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents

TRI­DENTS

D Smith run out 27

D Mu­naweera c Jayawar­dene b Tay­lor 18

+J Carter c Lynn b Theron 6

K Pol­lard not out 59

Mis­bah-ul-Haq c wkp Wal­ton b Vet­tori 0

J Hold­er b Rus­sell 26

N Stew­art c Vet­tori b Rus­sell 0

A Nurse c Lynn b Theron 7

R Em­rit not out 0

Ex­tras (lb2, w1) 3

TO­TAL (7 wk­ts, 20 overs) 146

Fall of wick­ets: 1-31 (Mu­naweera), 2-44 (Carter), 3-62 (Smith), 4-64 (Mis­bah-ul-Haq), 5-122 (Hold­er), 6-122 (Stew­art),

7-130 (Nurse)

Bowl­ing: San­tok­ie 4-0-37-0 (w1), Vet­tori 4-0-26-1, Tay­lor 4-0-24-1, Theron 4-0-39-2, Rus­sell 4-0-18-2.

TALLAWAHS

C Gayle c Mis­bah-ul-Haq b Ram­paul 14

+C Wal­ton b Em­rit 46

C Lynn b Pe­ter­son 13

D Jayawar­dene c Pol­lard b Pe­ter­son 0

J Black­wood b Pe­ter­son 2

N Bon­ner not out 31

A Rus­sell c Pol­lard b Hold­er 15

J Theron b Hold­er 0

J Tay­lor not out 3

Ex­tras (b1, lb1, w3) 5

TO­TAL (7 wk­ts, 20 overs) 129

Did not bat: D Vet­tori, K San­tok­ie.

Fall of wick­ets: 1-18 (Gayle), 2-34 (Lynn), 3-34 (Jayawar­dene), 4-36 (Black­wood),

5-103 (Wal­ton), 6-121 (Rus­sell), 7-122 (Theron)

Bowl­ing: Ram­paul 4-0-21-1 (w2), Hold­er 4-0-36-2, Pe­ter­son 3-0-13-3, Nurse 1-0-12-0, Em­rit 4-0-14-1 (w1), Pol­lard 3-0-23-0, Stew­art 1-0-8-0.