PROV­I­DENCE – The Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers are still in the hunt for their first Caribbean Pre­mier League ti­tle since 2020, this af­ter they ad­vanced to the next round af­ter a com­mand­ing nine-wick­et vic­to­ry over the An­tigua & Bar­bu­da Fal­cons in Guyana in Tues­day’s Elim­i­na­tor.

The Fal­cons, play­ing in their first-ever knock­out match, will head home de­spite a valiant ef­fort, as their cam­paign end­ed with the Knight Rid­ers’ pow­er­ful bat­ting line­up click­ing at the per­fect time.

The match turned on a dra­mat­ic col­lapse. Af­ter a mag­nif­i­cent 108-run sec­ond-wick­et part­ner­ship be­tween An­dries Gous and Amir Jan­goo, the Fal­cons were cruis­ing at 129-1 with just four overs re­main­ing.

How­ev­er, the in­nings un­rav­elled spec­tac­u­lar­ly, as both set bat­ters fell in quick suc­ces­sion to the miser­ly spin of Us­man Tariq, who bagged 2-19, trig­ger­ing a cas­cade of wick­ets.

Tariq first had Jan­goo caught for 55 from 49 balls, then he trapped Gous in front for 61 off 45 balls.

The death bowl­ing of Saurabh Ne­travalkar, 3-23 and An­dre Rus­sell, 2-30, stran­gled the Fal­cons’ mo­men­tum, lim­it­ing them to a be­low-par 161-8 from a po­si­tion that promised a much larg­er to­tal.

Shak­ib Al Hasan weighed in with an un­beat­en 26.

The Knight Rid­ers’ chase suf­fered an ear­ly blow when stal­wart Col­in Munro was dis­missed by Rah­keem Corn­wall for 14. Any Fal­con hopes were short-lived, as Nicholas Pooran and Alex Hales pro­ceed­ed to put on a breath­tak­ing bat­ting clin­ic.

Their un­bro­ken 143-run part­ner­ship was a mas­ter­class in con­trolled ag­gres­sion, dis­man­tling the bowl­ing at­tack with ease.

Hales pro­vid­ed the steady an­chor with a com­posed 54 not out from 40 balls, while Pooran was ut­ter­ly dom­i­nant, blast­ing an un­beat­en 90 from 53 balls to seal the vic­to­ry with 15 balls to spare.

By the mid­way point of the in­nings, the re­sult was a fore­gone con­clu­sion, with the pres­sure en­tire­ly evap­o­rat­ed.

This vic­to­ry is a mas­sive mo­men­tum shift for the Knight Rid­ers, who snapped a three-game los­ing streak at the most cru­cial time.

With their two star bat­ters in sub­lime form, they now await the los­er of the Qual­i­fi­er 1 match be­tween the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors and Saint Lu­cia Kings lat­er on Wednes­day, for a chance to move one step clos­er to the fi­nal.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

FAL­CONS 166-8 in 20 overs (An­dries Gous 61, Amir Jan­goo 55, Shak­ib Al Hasan 26 not out; Saurabh Ne­travalkar 3-23, Us­man Tariq 2-19, An­dre Rus­sell 2-30) vs KNIGHT RID­ERS 168-1 in 17.3 overs (Nicholas Pooran 90 not out, Alex Hales 54 not out, Col­in Munro 14).

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers won by nine wick­ets.