GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana – Shai Hope’s fourth fifty of the cam­paign was enough to see Guyana Ama­zon War­riors to an un­com­pli­cat­ed six-wick­et vic­to­ry over Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers with 10 balls to spare, and guar­an­tee them top spot in the group stage of the Caribbean Pre­mier League on Sat­ur­day night.

The West In­dies one-day cap­tain struck a typ­i­cal­ly pol­ished un­beat­en 54 off 37 de­liv­er­ies as the hosts, asked to chase a com­pet­i­tive 177, got over the line with eight balls to spare at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um.

With a sin­gle game re­main­ing in their cam­paign, Ama­zon War­riors top the stand­ings with 15 points, two clear of TKR who have fin­ished their com­ple­ment of ten match­es.

Fast bowler Odean Smith, pro­mot­ed to open­er, blast­ed 44 from 32 de­liv­er­ies in a 56-run, open­ing stand with Pak­istan’s Saim Ayub whose 37 re­quired 24 balls.

Hope then ar­rived at num­ber three to con­trol the chase in a 61-run, sec­ond wick­et part­ner­ship with Smith and in an­oth­er 38-run, un­bro­ken fifth wick­et stand with South African Dwaine Pre­to­rius (11 not out).

Sent in ear­li­er, a TKR side shorn of Nicholas Pooran, An­dre Rus­sell and Sunil Nar­ine gath­ered 176 for eight off their 20 overs with Kea­cy Car­ty stroking a top score of 83 off 49 de­liv­er­ies in his first game of the sea­son.

TKR got off to a bad start when Mar­tin Gup­til was run out for one but Mark Deyal’s quick fire 37 from 20 balls en­sured the Knight Rid­ers were able to post a healthy 49/2 by the end of the Pow­er­Play.

Deyal and Chad­wick Wal­ton (25) chipped in with key knocks but TKR still found them­selves lim­it­ed af­ter South African leg-spin­ner Im­ran Tahir pro­duced a su­perb spell of three for 12 from four overs.

TKR lost Mar­tin Gup­till for one via the run out route when Ju­nior Sin­clair threw down the stumps at the non-strik­er’s end in the sec­ond over, with five runs on the board.

Car­ty then stitched to­geth­er two crit­i­cal part­ner­ships which laid the foun­da­tion for TKR’s even­tu­al to­tal. First, he put on 41 for the sec­ond wick­et with Deyal be­fore adding a fur­ther 59 for the sec­ond wick­et with open­er Wal­ton, and 45 for the third with cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard (9).

His de­par­ture in the penul­ti­mate over in which he was even­tu­al­ly stumped, was one of three wick­ets in the 19th over as Im­ran Tahir halt­ed the Knight Rid­ers mo­men­tum.

Ama­zon War­riors grabbed con­trol of the chase from ear­ly, Smith count­ing four fours and three six­es and Saim, three fours and two six­es, as the pair dom­i­nat­ed the pow­er-play.

With his lat­est ef­fort, the 21-year-old Saim moved his runs ral­ly for the sea­son to 341 while the styl­ish Hope, who punched three fours and two six­es, sur­passed 300 runs for the cam­paign.

Brief Scores

TKR 176 for eight off 20 overs (Kea­cy Car­ty 83, Mark Deyal 37, Chad­wick Wal­ton 25; Im­ran Tahir 3-12)

AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 177 for four off 18.4 overs (Shai Hope 54 not out, Odean Smith 44, Saim Ayub 37)