Skip­per Shoaib Ma­lik’s Guyana Ama­zon War­riors stamped their su­prema­cy on this sea­son’s Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League on Fri­day night.

The War­riors scalped floun­der­ing de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers by sev­en wick­ets at the Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um in Guyana to be­come the first side ever to win all 10 match­es in their round-robin qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign and fin­ish with a max­i­mum 20 points.

Af­ter re­strict­ing the TKR to just 143-5 in their turn at the crease, wick­et­keep­er/bats­man Nicholas Pooran stroked a bril­liant un­beat­en half-cen­tu­ry to steer the flaw­less War­riors to 144-3.

Pooran hit 54, in­clud­ing five fours and three six­es, in his in­nings and cut TKR pac­er Ali Khan to the back­ward point bound­ary to in the 19th over to end the match, get­ting to 1,000 runs in his CPL ca­reer with the win­ning shot. He had brought up his half-cen­tu­ry the ball be­fore that by hit­ting Khan over the long-off bound­ary, a shot which put the fi­nal nail in the TKR cof­fin.

With the win, the War­riors will now meet the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents (10 pts) in the first qual­i­fi­er match on Sun­day at 3.30 pm to de­cide who goes straight to the fi­nal. TKR (9 pts) mean­while, who slumped to their fifth loss in their last six match­es and end­ed up mak­ing the play­offs as the fourth-placed team af­ter win­ning the first four match­es of sea­son, will meet the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots (10 pts) in the first elim­i­na­tor match at 11 am Sun­day, with the win­ner play­ing the los­er of the War­riors/Tri­dents match for the oth­er spot in the fi­nal.

But on Fri­day night, man-of-the-match Pooran shared in an un­beat­en 85-run stand with skip­per Ma­lik, who got 28, to guide the War­riors home af­ter the top or­der failed to shine for one of the few times this sea­son.

Khan had got the vi­tal open­ing break­through for TKR in the sixth over when he got the in-form Chran­dra­paul Hem­raj (12) to pull a bounc­er straight to Chris Jor­dan at deep mid­wick­et as the War­riors fell to 35-1.

Jim­my Nee­sham was hit for a four off his first ball in the eighth over by Bran­don King. How­ev­er, he got his re­venge the next ball when King was ad­judged lbw to a ball which nipped back at him, al­though re­plays sug­gest­ed he may have got an edge on it. King was out for a 22-ball 33 laced with sev­en fours but the War­riors were still com­fort­able at 53-2.

Af­ter be­ing hit for four off the third ball in the next over, spin­ner Khary Pierre got his re­venge when Shim­ron Het­my­er (9) went for a full-blood­ed cov­er dri­ve the next ball on­ly to see Lendl Sim­mons pluck it out the air with a bril­liant div­ing ef­fort.

The heav­ens then opened up, forc­ing the play­ers off the field. And when Pooran and Ma­lik re­turned to the crease they charge to his­to­ry could not be stopped.

Ear­li­er, how­ev­er, War­rriors left-arm or­tho­dox spin­ner Hem­raj struck three vi­tal blows with the same ball from his reper­toire to put the TKR in big trou­ble in­side the Pow­er Play and sig­nal the War­riors' in­tent.

First, he made Pol­lard pay for ex­per­i­ment­ing with Javon Sear­les as an open­er by bowl­ing him with his arm ball for one, Sear­les (1) go­ing for a big slog sweep as he strug­gled to read the spin­ner. How­ev­er, De­nesh Ramdin, one of the bet­ter play­ers of spin in the TKR team, must al­so not have got the mes­sage as he was com­ing to the crease. He too was bowled two balls lat­er by the same Hem­raj de­liv­ery with­out scor­ing, the ball this time skid­ding in­to Ramdin quick­er than he ex­pect­ed as he played back, TKR stut­ter­ing to two for 19.

In-form open­er Lendl Sim­mons (18), who watched the demise of his team­mates from the oth­er end al­so did not heed the les­son, as he too was bowled by a Hem­raj arm ball he ex­pect­ed to turn in­to him as he played back, TKR now stum­bling at 41-3 in the sev­enth over and their fans de­spair­ing of yet an­oth­er col­lapse.

Bra­vo and Munro took them to the 10-over break with no fur­ther trou­ble but at 62-3 the scor­ing rate was well be­yond what they need­ed for a good score. There was no dif­fer­ence in the TKR ap­proach there­after ei­ther.

Bra­vo (9) lost his pa­tience soon af­ter the restart, went for a big dri­ve which he didn't con­trol and skied Shoaib Ma­lik's fifth ball of the 11th over high in­to the night sky where Shim­ron Het­my­er gob­bled it up at long-on as TKR were now in a deep hole at 63-4.

Munro and Pol­lard added 39 be­fore Munro even­tu­al­ly went in the over, caught at long-on by Shim­ron Het­my­er, who had ear­li­er dropped him on 21, off medi­um-pac­er Ben Laugh­lin, TKR now 102-5 in the 17th over. Munro made 43 off 40 balls with two fours and two six­es.

But Pol­lard and Jim­my Nee­sham (12*) got 40 off the last three overs to give them some­thing they could work with, Pol­lard end­ing un­beat­en on 36 which fea­tured just four fours and a max­i­mum, which told just how hard it was to bat on the pitch.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

TRIN­BA­GO KNIGHT RID­ERS 143-5 (20) (Col­in Munro 43, Kieron Pol­lard 36*, Lendl Sim­mons 30, Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj 3/15, Shoaib Ma­lik 1/10) v GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 144-3 (18.4) (Nicholas Pooran 54, Bran­don King 33, Shoaib Ma­lik 28*, Khary Pierre 1/25, Ali Khan 1/27)

Re­sult: GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS WON BY 7 WK­TS

Man-of-the-match: Nicholas Pooran (GAW)