NORTH SOUND – The Guyana Ama­zon War­riors hard­ly broke a sweat on their way to a com­pre­hen­sive sev­en-wick­et win over the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Fal­cons, their third in as many match­es in the Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League.

Fast bowler Shamar Joseph led a sen­sa­tion­al bowl­ing per­for­mance by the vis­i­tors that saw them rout the Fal­cons for a mere 116 in 17 overs at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um in An­tigua.

Shai Hope and Shim­ron Het­my­er then both just fell short of half-cen­turies, with their ef­forts pro­pelling the Ama­zon War­riors to 121 for three in on­ly 9.5 overs.

The re­sult was nev­er in doubt af­ter Joseph, cap­tain Im­ran Tahir and fel­low spin­ner Khary Pierre ripped the heart out of the home side’s bat­ting line­up.

Rah­keem Cor­wall and Amir Jan­goo’s speedy open­ing part­ner­ship was end­ed when the for­mer gift­ed Play­er-of-the-Match Pierre with a sim­ple re­turn catch to make the score 18 for one in the sec­ond over.

Pierre al­so claimed the wick­et of Kari­ma Gore for eight, be­fore a 40-run part­ner­ship be­tween Amir Jan­goo and Hasan Nawaz looked to have giv­en the Fal­cons the mo­men­tum they need­ed.

How­ev­er, once Tahir had Nawaz spec­tac­u­lar­ly caught at deep square leg by Glenn Phillips for 20, the Fal­cons lost their way.

Phillips struck a cru­cial blow by dis­miss­ing Jan­goo for 37 off 29 balls in his soli­tary over to leave the home side 84 for four and 12 runs lat­er Joseph prised out the wick­et of Joshua James.

The Fal­cons then lost their last five wick­ets for eight runs, with Joseph bring­ing the in­nings to a screech­ing end by bowl­ing Alzarri Joseph and Jay­den Seales for ducks in the space of three balls.

He fin­ished with fig­ures of 3-22, while Tahir (2-15) and Pierre (2-19) each took two wick­ets.

The Ama­zon War­riors lost the ear­ly wick­ets of Phillips and Matthew Nan­du for 11 and one re­spec­tive­ly, to find them­selves in a shaky po­si­tion of 16 for two in the third over.

But any hopes the Fal­cons had of pulling off an un­like­ly vic­to­ry were quick­ly erased by Hope and Het­my­er, who put on 99 runs for the third wick­et in sev­en overs.

Hope scored five runs off his first eight balls but broke out by hit­ting Joseph for two suc­ces­sive six­es to be­gin the fourth over, which al­so in­clud­ed a ma­jes­tic square dri­ve that raced away to the bound­ary.

He then thumped Seales for a four and six off con­sec­u­tive de­liv­er­ies in the next over, be­fore Het­my­er joined in on the fun by thump­ing Corn­wall for back-to-back six­es in the sev­enth over.

Moeen Ali was then hit for two six­es by Het­my­er, and he al­so gave the same treat­ment to medi­um pac­er Shamar Springer, blud­geon­ing him for two six­es and a four in the 10th over to move with­in a run of a well-de­served 50.

Springer got the last laugh, though, by hav­ing Het­my­er caught the next ball for 49 off 17 balls, with the Ama­zon War­riors need­ing just two runs for vic­to­ry.

Quentin Samp­son then fin­ished off the match in style by swat­ting Springer for six, as Hope fin­ished un­beat­en on 47 off 26 balls with four six­es and two fours.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

AN­TIGUA & BAR­BU­DA FAL­CONS 116 in 17 overs (Amir Jan­goo 37, Hasan Nawaz 20, Kusal Per­era 16, Joshua James 10; Shamar Joseph 3-22, Im­ran Tahir 2-15, Khary Pierre 2-19).

GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 121-3 in 9.5 overs (Shim­ron Het­my­er 49, Shai Hope 47 not out, Glenn Phillips 11).

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors de­feat­ed the An­tigua & Bar­bu­da Fal­cons by sev­en wick­ets