GEORGE­TOWN – The Guyana Ama­zon War­riors se­cured their spot in the Exxon­Mo­bil Guyana Glob­al Su­per League (GSL) fi­nal with a com­mand­ing four-wick­et vic­to­ry over the Ho­bart Hur­ri­canes XI, tri­umph­ing with 21 balls to spare here at The Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um Wednes­day night.

Rid­ing the en­er­gy of a pas­sion­ate home crowd, the War­riors com­fort­ably chased down the Hur­ri­canes’ mod­est to­tal of 125, fin­ish­ing atop the tour­na­ment stand­ings on a su­pe­ri­or net run rate.

How­ev­er, their op­po­nents in Sat­ur­day’s fi­nal, de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Rang­pur Rid­ers, re­main lev­el on points with a game still to play.

Hav­ing won the toss, the Hur­ri­canes opt­ed to bat first but strug­gled to build mo­men­tum. Five bat­ters reached dou­ble fig­ures, but none could con­vert their starts in­to a match-defin­ing score.

Fabi­an Allen pro­vid­ed a brief spark with a quick­fire 28 off 20 balls, in­clud­ing two tow­er­ing six­es, but his dis­missal to vet­er­an spin­ner Im­ran Tahir in the 16th over snuffed out any hopes of a com­pet­i­tive to­tal.

The War­riors’ bowl­ing at­tack, led by Play­er of the Match Gu­dakesh Motie, stran­gled the Hur­ri­canes’ in­nings.

Motie’s mes­meris­ing spell of 3-9 in just 3.1 overs dis­man­tled the mid­dle or­der, while his late cameo of 19 off 13 with the bat fur­ther ce­ment­ed his im­pact.

The Hur­ri­canes struck ear­ly with a cou­ple of wick­ets, rais­ing faint hopes of an up­set. But those dreams were swift­ly crushed by the ex­plo­sive Shim­ron Het­my­er, who un­leashed a breath­tak­ing as­sault, smash­ing six six­es in a whirl­wind 39 off just 10 de­liv­er­ies.

His bru­tal hit­ting left the Hur­ri­canes shell-shocked and all but sealed the game in a mat­ter of min­utes. At the oth­er end, the calm and com­posed Moeen Ali with a res­olute 30 not out off 36 balls, en­sured there were no late hic­cups, guid­ing the War­riors to vic­to­ry with ease at 128-6 in 16.3 overs.

CMC