I am hap­py to re­port that my prized five-dol­lar bill re­mains safe­ly fold­ed in my back pock­et. Last week, I men­tioned keep­ing that cash tucked away even though I felt 99.9 per cent cer­tain the An­tigua & Bar­bu­da Fal­cons (ABF) were poised to cre­ate his­to­ry and cap­ture their first-ever Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) crown.

True to form, the Fal­cons didn’t just win the ti­tle; they put on an ab­solute clin­ic, cruis­ing home in a can­ter to com­pre­hen­sive­ly claim the tro­phy.

Be­fore we break down the cham­pi­ons, huge praise must be ex­tend­ed to the Ja­maica Kings­men (JAK). Give JAK their jack­et; they played some elec­tri­fy­ing crick­et to reach the fi­nal, even if the man­ner of their ul­ti­mate de­feat left a bit­ter taste. Af­ter eas­i­ly dis­pos­ing of the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents (BT) in the Elim­i­na­tor—a BT side that re­lied far too heav­i­ly on Quin­ton de Kock to car­ry their en­tire bat­ting de­part­ment—the Kings­men then pro­duced the game of the tour­na­ment in Qual­i­fi­er Two.

Chas­ing down a for­mi­da­ble 207 against the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (GAW), JAK got home with two balls to spare in a heart-stop­ping thriller.

GAW must have felt rea­son­ably com­fort­able with 207 on the board, but they clear­ly failed to bud­get for JAK’s 21-year-old Pak­istani run ma­chine, Maaz Sadaqat. He smashed a blis­ter­ing 41 off just 17 balls to kick­start that chase, build­ing on a stun­ning 112 off 49 balls against Bar­ba­dos ear­li­er in the play­offs.

By the time GAW re­alised what hit them, Sadaqat, whom fans have ap­pro­pri­ate­ly re-bap­tised “Mad” Sadaqat, had al­ready placed the match be­yond reach.

The fi­nal, how­ev­er, was a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent sto­ry. While “Mad” Sadaqat once again played like a man pos­sessed, blast­ing a sub­lime 114 off 58 balls, he was es­sen­tial­ly a lone ranger on a de­sert­ed is­land. Saim Ayub at­tempt­ed to play Ton­to for a brief stretch, but once Ayub fell at 110, an­oth­er Pak­istani star stepped in­to the spot­light, but this time for ABF: left-arm wrist spin­ner Su­fyan Mo­qim. Mo­qim un­leashed a spell of ab­solute de­cep­tion that com­plete­ly bam­boo­zled the Kings­men mid­dle or­der. JAK im­plod­ed from a com­fort­able 110 for 2 to a dis­as­trous 127 for 7.

Even though Sadaqat was still bat­ting as if he was play­ing on an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent pitch, they need­ed to score over 215 to give their bowlers a chance.

They end­ed at 170 for 9, which, quite frankly, was nev­er go­ing to be enough (at least 40 runs short), as, in my view, the JAK do not pos­sess two good, po­tent strike bowlers to de­fend that type of to­tal, as was seen when GAW bat­ted against them.

With­out two po­tent front­line strike bowlers, JAK’s bowl­ing at­tack was swal­lowed whole by An­tigua’s com­po­sure. The Fal­cons knocked off the tar­get by eight wick­ets with min­i­mal fuss, prov­ing why they were the most com­plete unit in the com­pe­ti­tion.

They thor­ough­ly de­served the ti­tle, and they de­serve enor­mous con­grat­u­la­tions. It was a re­mark­able turn­around when you con­sid­er how their cam­paign be­gan.

ABF lost two of their open­ing three match­es while field­ing a de­plet­ed squad. But then the cav­al­ry ar­rived: skip­per Moeen Ali joined in match three, Shadab Khan ar­rived for match four, and Mo­qim checked in for match six.

Sud­den­ly, the Fal­cons took flight and nev­er looked back.

Moeen Ali’s tac­ti­cal lead­er­ship was noth­ing short of bril­liant. His ex­pe­ri­ence, calm dis­po­si­tion, and the con­fi­dence he in­stilled in the team played a ma­jor part in them be­com­ing cham­pi­ons.

He was eas­i­ly the best cap­tain of the tour­na­ment.

Cru­cial un­beat­en knocks of 25 against St Kitts and Nevis Pa­tri­ots (SKNP) and 32 against Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) proved his val­ue in tight cor­ners, but it was his game man­age­ment that tru­ly set him apart.

The ABF won games with some very high scores of over 180, but the Fal­cons’ bowl­ing depth was phe­nom­e­nal. Open­ing an at­tack with the two finest fast bowlers in the re­gion, Jay­den Seales swing­ing the ball both ways and Alzarri Joseph pro­vid­ing raw, hos­tile pace, put every op­po­si­tion top or­der in im­me­di­ate sur­vival mode.

Be­hind them, medi­um-pac­er Joshua James was a mas­sive rev­e­la­tion who came up trumps when Ali called on him, grab­bing 12 wick­ets at an econ­o­my rate of 8.50 from nine games, while Shamar Springer played the ul­ti­mate util­i­ty role when­ev­er called up­on.

Then came Rah­keem Corn­wall. Like him or hate him, “Jim­bo” sim­ply gets the job done. He con­sis­tent­ly snared vi­tal break­through wick­ets be­fore step­ping up to smash 20 to 30 runs off just ten balls when­ev­er re­quired.

Com­bine that with the spin twins of Shadab Khan (11 wick­ets at a mi­cro­scop­ic 4.89 econ­o­my rate) and Su­fyan Mo­qim (12 wick­ets at 6.00), and they were so good that Moeen Ali bare­ly need­ed to bowl five overs him­self in the en­tire tour­na­ment. Fab­u­lous and stun­ning for T20 crick­et.

On the bat­ting side, while no in­di­vid­ual post­ed as­tro­nom­i­cal to­tals, every­one chipped in when the team need­ed a lift.

Hasan Nawaz and Evin Lewis pro­vid­ed sta­bil­i­ty in the bat­ting with 220 runs apiece, while Amir Jan­goo was sol­id and con­tributed 213, and Corn­wall added 189 off pure pow­er-hit­ting.

Off the field, head coach Paul Nixon earned his third CPL ti­tle, prov­ing he holds the se­cret recipe for re­gion­al T20 suc­cess. But the per­son I am most thrilled for is as­sis­tant coach and bowl­ing men­tor Sir Curt­ly Am­brose. Watch­ing his raw pas­sion on the bound­ary lines was in­fec­tious, and there is ze­ro doubt his fiery pep talks in­spired that bowl­ing unit to great­ness.

Se­lect­ing an un­bi­ased Team of the Tour­na­ment is al­ways a dan­ger­ous sport in the Caribbean, but based pure­ly on con­sis­tent im­pact and nu­mer­i­cal dom­i­nance, here is my de­fin­i­tive XI from the 2026 cam­paign:

Open­ing the in­nings, we have the tour­na­ment’s break­out su­per­star Maaz Sadaqat along­side the ever-re­li­able Col­in Munro, who once again pro­vid­ed the rare bright sparks for TKR at the top of the or­der.

Slot­ting in at num­ber three is South African mae­stro Quin­ton de Kock, fol­lowed by the GAW’s dan­ger­ous mid­dle-or­der duo of Shai Hope and Shim­ron Het­my­er.

Our cap­tain and tac­ti­cal gen­er­al is Moeen Ali, sit­ting at num­ber six, fol­lowed by a stacked all-rounder core fea­tur­ing Shadab Khan, the tire­less Sunil Nar­ine, and Guyana’s Dwaine Pre­to­rius.

Round­ing out the bowl­ing at­tack are speed mer­chant Alzarri Joseph and mys­tery spin­ner Su­fyan Mo­qim.

To com­plete the squad, my five re­serves wait­ing on the bench would be age­less leg-spin­ner Im­ran Tahir, Ja­maican quick­ie Hu­nain Shah, ex­plo­sive fin­ish­er Rov­man Pow­ell, SKNP all-rounder Da­sun Shana­ka, and An­tigua’s re­li­able mid­dle-or­der bats­man Hasan Nawaz.

With the CPL par­ty of­fi­cial­ly wrapped up, sports fans must im­me­di­ate­ly piv­ot their at­ten­tion from the crick­et pitch to­ward the foot­ball field as the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League ac­tion takes cen­tre stage.

Trinidad and To­ba­go launch­es its cam­paign against World Cup fi­nal­ists Haiti in Ja­maica, be­fore re­turn­ing home for a cru­cial clash against the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um on Sun­day.

Con­ca­caf has cu­ri­ous­ly hand­ed T&T a 9 pm Sun­day night kick­off time, but no mat­ter how late the hour, du­ty calls.

The squad then trav­els to face Cu­raçao on Oc­to­ber 1 be­fore host­ing them back in Port-of-Spain for the re­turn fix­ture.

To ad­vance to the quar­ter-fi­nals, T&T must se­cure a top-two fin­ish in this group. When the boys stepped on­to the field dur­ing the World Cup qual­i­fiers, the home crowd turned the sta­di­um in­to a sea of red and an ab­solute fortress. The ex­act same elec­tri­fy­ing at­mos­phere is need­ed on Sun­day night.

Pack the stands, bring the noise, your flags and let the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Cu­raçao know be­yond a shad­ow of a doubt that they are walk­ing di­rect­ly in­to en­e­my ter­ri­to­ry. See you at the sta­di­um on Sun­day!