KINGSTOWN – Aaliyah Al­leyne played a star­ring role with both bat and ball to car­ry Bar­ba­dos Women in­to the fi­nal of the T20 Blaze with a re­sound­ing 22-run vic­to­ry over de­fend­ing champs Guyana Women in St Vin­cent on Wednes­day.

Play­ing in a must-win game, the cap­tain led from the front in an un­beat­en knock of 38 off 36 balls, which res­cued her side from the pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion of 32 for four and got them up to 92 for eight from their 20 overs.

Al­leyne then re­turned to grab two wick­ets as Guyana were bun­dled out for 70 in 19.4 overs.

With the win, Bar­ba­dos se­cured a sec­ond-place fin­ish in the stand­ings to qual­i­fy for the fi­nal against Lee­ward Is­lands Women on Fri­day and en­sure a new cham­pi­on will be crowned in this year’s tour­na­ment.

Bar­ba­dos en­dured a hor­ri­ble start to their in­nings, los­ing Eboni Brath­waite for four, Tr­is­han Hold­er for two and Nai­jan­ni Cum­ber­batch for eight, to slump to 18 for three.

But even as wick­ets con­tin­u­ous­ly fell around her, Al­leyne re­mained stead­fast in a dis­ci­plined knock that con­tained two bound­aries and held the in­nings to­geth­er.

She formed cru­cial part­ner­ships with Shak­era Sel­man, who made 10, and then shared an un­bro­ken stand of 18 with num­ber nine bat­ter Shani­ka Bruce, who end­ed on sev­en not out.

Kaysia Schultz sliced through Bar­ba­dos’ mid­dle or­der to fin­ish with 4-13 from her four overs.

Need­ing to score at just over four and a half runs an over, Guyana be­gan their chase in the worst pos­si­ble fash­ion with Nai­jan­ni Cum­ber­batch dis­miss­ing open­ers Shene­ta Grim­mond and Realean­na Grim­mond for ducks with just one run on the board.

Things then went from bad to worse when She­maine Camp­belle was caught be­hind for just one four runs lat­er.

Shabi­ka Gajn­abi and Mandy Man­gru shared a brief 23-run part­ner­ship, but once Al­leyne trapped the lat­ter lbw for 11 Guyana’s in­nings ca­pit­u­lat­ed.

Gajn­abi tried her best to hold the in­nings to­geth­er in a brave, un­beat­en 41 off 44 balls, in­clu­sive of two fours and one six, but she re­ceived lit­tle sup­port from the oth­er bat­ters, with none reach­ing dou­ble dig­its.

For Bar­ba­dos, Thean­ny Her­bert-May­ers took 3-16, Al­leyne grabbed 2-11, Cum­ber­batch fin­ished with 2-16 and Keila El­liott 2-21.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

BAR­BA­DOS WOMEN 92-8 in 20 overs (Aaliyah Al­leyne 38 not out, Shak­era Sel­man 10; Kaysia Schultz 4-13) vs GUYANA WOMEN 70 in 19.4 overs (Shabi­ka Gajn­abi 41 not out, Mandy Man­gru 11; Thean­ny Her­bert-May­ers 3-16, Aaliyah Al­leyne 2-11, Nai­jan­ni Cum­ber­batch 2-16, Keila El­liott 2-21). Bar­ba­dos Women won by 22 runs.