Guyana Ama­zon War­riors de­feat­ed Ja­maica Tallawahs by 46 runs in the 26th game of the Caribbean Pre­mier League at Warn­er Park on Sat­ur­day.

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors have one foot in the se­mi-fi­nals.

The Ama­zon War­riors won the toss and elect­ed to bat first and cap­tain Nicholas Pooran led the way with a bru­tal 75 not out to set the Tallawahs 170 to win.

In re­ply, the Tallawahs suc­cumbed to a heavy de­feat as Odean Smith and Gu­dakesh Motie com­bined to bowl the Ama­zon War­riors to vic­to­ry.

Guyana got their in­nings off to a steady start amass­ing 46 runs in the Pow­er­Play but they had to con­tend with the loss of Bran­don King and Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj in do­ing so.

De­spite Shim­ron Het­my­er then run­ning him­self out, Nicholas Pooran and Shoaib Ma­lik put to­geth­er a part­ner­ship of 54 runs from 33 balls to place Guyana in a strong po­si­tion with six overs to go.

Pooran then took on the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of get­ting his side in­to a good po­si­tion and his py­rotech­nics at the back end of the in­nings en­sured Guyana Ama­zon War­riors post­ed a very com­pet­i­tive 169/6.

The Tallawahs were able to keep pace with the re­quired run rate in the ear­ly stages of their re­ply as Haider Ali and Kirk Mcken­zie over­came the loss of Ken­nar Lewis to put on a 41-run part­ner­ship.

Odean Smith’s en­try in­to the at­tack proved piv­otal as his two wick­ets in two balls swung the pen­du­lum back in Guyana’s favour and he wasn’t done there as he al­so got rid of An­dre Rus­sell in a won­der­ful wick­et maid­en over.

Along­side Smith, Gu­dakesh Motie spun a web as his three wick­ets helped en­sure there was no chance of an un­like­ly win for the Tallawahs.

The vic­to­ry for the Ama­zon War­riors means the Tallawahs will now have to win the re­turn game to make the se­mi-fi­nals.

Brief Scores

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors 169/6 (Pooran 75*, Het­my­er 23; Rus­sell 2/35, Green 1/17) beat Ja­maica Tallawahs 123 all out (Mcken­zie 28, Brooks 21; Smith 3/21, Motie 3/25) by 46 runs