PROV­I­DENCE – Dwaine Pre­to­rius hit a six off the last ball of the match to lift the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors to a thrilling two-wick­et win over the Saint Lu­cia Kings and ce­ment their place in the play­offs of the 2025 Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League in Guyana on Sat­ur­day.

Need­ing three runs off the fi­nal ball bowled by Kings’ cap­tain David Wiese to over­haul their to­tal of 185 for four, Pre­to­rius got un­der a low full toss and sent it back over the bowler’s head for a max­i­mum to pro­pel the Ama­zon War­rior to 188 for eight and send the packed stands at Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um in­to a fren­zy.

The vic­to­ry was an im­por­tant one for the Ama­zon War­riors as it not on­ly end­ed a two-game los­ing streak, but it al­so booked their place in the play­offs while elim­i­nat­ing the St Kitts and Nevis Pa­tri­ots from play­off con­tention.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a win over the bot­tom-placed Bar­ba­dos Roy­als in their fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary game on Sun­day would pro­pel them in­to one of the all-im­por­tant top two spots.

The Ama­zon War­riors’ vic­to­ry was set up by Play­er-of-the-Match Quentin Samp­son, who, along with Shai Hope, put them in a strong po­si­tion.

Af­ter Ben Mc­Der­mott was dis­missed for 17 to leave the score 37 for one in the fifth over, Samp­son, who was pro­mot­ed to open the in­nings, and Hope shared a 66-run part­ner­ship.

Samp­son hit David Wiese for two bound­aries in the sixth over and fol­lowed it up by whack­ing De­lano Pot­gi­eter for a six and a four in the next over to move in­to the 40s.

He then brought up his maid­en CPL half-cen­tu­ry off 27 balls by thump­ing pac­er Keon Gas­ton for two con­sec­u­tive six­es in the ninth over.

Ros­ton Chase fi­nal­ly got the break­through when he had Samp­son caught for 76 off 39 balls, which in­clud­ed sev­en fours and five six­es, to make the score 103 for two in the 12th over.

His dis­missal trig­gered a mid­dle or­der col­lapse that saw the War­riors lose Shim­ron Het­my­er, Shamarh Brooks, Has­san Khan and Ro­mario Shep­herd in quick suc­ces­sion to slump to 133 for six.

Hope stepped up the tem­po dur­ing a 28-run part­ner­ship with Moeen Ali in three overs, be­fore he was even­tu­al­ly caught try­ing to hit Wiese out of the ground for 40.

With two overs re­main­ing, the War­riors need­ed 23 runs, with Gas­ton con­ced­ing 11 runs in the penul­ti­mate over.

Ali was run out off the third ball try­ing to scram­ble a sec­ond run and the equa­tion came down to three runs off the last de­liv­ery, where Pre­to­rius stepped up to the plate.

Chase end­ed with 3-30, while Tabraiz Sham­si took 2-31 for the Kings.

Pre­to­rius’ late game hero­ics ru­ined a mag­nif­i­cent per­for­mance from Chase, who slammed a su­perb, un­beat­en 90 from 55 balls, which pro­pelled the Kings to a com­pet­i­tive to­tal.

King struck six fours and five six­es dur­ing his in­nings and to­geth­er with Ac­k­eem Au­guste who scored an even half-cen­tu­ry, added 90 runs in nine overs for the third wick­et.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

KINGS 185-4 in 20 overs (Ros­ton Chase 90 not out, Ac­k­eem Au­guste 50, John­son Charles 16, De­lano Pot­gi­eter 14 not out; Dwaine Pre­to­rius 2-36) vs AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 188-8 in 20 overs (Quentin Samp­son 76, Shai Hope 44, Moeen Ali 17, Ben Mc­Der­mott 16, Dwaine Pre­to­rius 12 not out; Ros­ton Chase 3-30, Tabraiz Sham­si 2-31).

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors won by two wick­ets.