Four straight loss­es at the back end of the 2019 Hero CPL T20 tour­na­ment have left the Trin­ba­go Knights (TKR) with a long hard climb to re­peat as cham­pi­ons.

The two-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons were out­played by a con­fi­dent and well-pre­pared Guyana Ama­zon War­riors out­fit in their back­yard of Prov­i­dence on Fri­day night. The de­feat con­demned the TKR to the fourth po­si­tion, which now leaves them need­ing three wins on the trot to lift the ti­tle.

That climb up the Kai­eteur Falls be­gins at 11 am on Sun­day when they face the St. Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots in the first play-off match. If they can get over the Pa­tri­ots they would have the com­fort of play­ing at home next Thurs­day, against the losers of the Qual­i­fy­ing clash be­tween the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors and the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents. The War­riors who be­hind their sev­enth-wick­et vic­to­ry on Fri­day night fin­ished with a per­fect 10-0 record in the reg­u­lar sea­son, will be mas­sive favourites when they clash with the Tri­dents at 4 pm to­day, al­so at the Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um in Guyana.

In front of a mas­sive band of sup­port­ers, the War­riors were tak­en to their per­fect 10 by T&T's Nico­las Pooran, who smashed his coun­try­men to the tune of 54 not out to take his fran­chise to the win.

The Knight Rid­ers have strug­gled af­ter an ear­ly hic­cup and from 19/2 it was al­ways go­ing to be an up­hill task. Dar­ren Bra­vo and Lendl Sim­mons bat­ted to­geth­er for a while but when they left it was a sor­ry a 63/4 in the 11th over.

It was Col­in Munro and Kieron Pol­lard who brought some re­spectabil­i­ty to the Knight Rid­ers to­tal with a part­ner­ship worth 39 which took the vis­i­tors’ to­tal passed 100. It was the wick­et of Munro which broke that stand when he hit Ben Laugh­lin down the ground and was well caught by Het­my­er. Some lusty blows from Jim­my Nee­sham at the end of the in­nings pushed the to­tal passed 140.

That did not look like it was enough, es­pe­cial­ly as Bran­don King and Hem­raj put on 35 for the first wick­et. When Hem­raj lost his wick­et to Chris Jor­dan it start­ed a col­lapse with the War­riors los­ing three wick­ets for 24 runs be­fore a short rain de­lay took the play­ers from the field.

When play recom­menced it was Shoaib Ma­lik and Nicholas Pooran who stead­ied the ship. It was a mat­ter of ac­cu­mu­lat­ing runs be­fore a re­mark­able as­sault from Pooran took him to an un­beat­en 54 from just 35 balls to take the War­riors to their 10th win con­sec­u­tive win from as many match­es. The Pooran-Ma­lik stand was worth 85 un­beat­en runs and end­ed up be­ing the dif­fer­ence be­tween the two sides.

Look­ing ahead at Sun­day's clash skip­per Pol­lard said: "Well it is a straight knock out for us from this point so we have to find a way to win match­es again. We con­tin­ue to strug­gle with dif­fer­ent as­pects of our game and we need to come out fight­ing to get past the Pa­tri­ots and then look to play the next qual­i­fy­ing game at home."

Man­ag­er Col­in Bor­de is still con­fi­dent: "We have seen some im­prove­ments from some of the play­ers but we need that all-round per­for­mance. We need the unit to come to­geth­er with com­bined per­for­mances to stop the op­po­si­tion.

"The play­ers all know where they went wrong and what they have to do to im­prove but that im­prove­ment has to be im­me­di­ate. We are still con­fi­dent in our abil­i­ties and we have the match-win­ners, who can turn up on the day and give you that big per­for­mance. the time for that is now and the play­ers have to step up."

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors man­ag­er Omar Khan is keep­ing his play­ers ground­ed. "Yes, we have won all 10 match­es in the pre­lim­i­nary round and this is fan­tas­tic but I keep re­mind­ing the boys that they have won noth­ing yet. The big games are com­ing up now and they need to keep that in­ten­si­ty up and make sure to fin­ish the job."

Omar has tak­en the War­riors to four fi­nals and they have lost all, so he will want to keep the play­ers fo­cussed on the job at hand and to make sure they don't choke in the end.

FRI­DAY'S SCORES

TKR 143 for five off 20 overs (Col­in Munro 43, Kieron Pol­lard 36 not out, Lendl Sim­mons 30; Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj 3-15)

AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 144 for three off 18.4 overs (Nicholas Pooran 54 not out, Bran­don King 33, Shoaib Ma­lik 28 not out)

TTEAMS

TKR: Kieron Pol­lard (capt), Sunil Nar­ine, Col­in Munro, De­nesh Ramdin, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Chris Jor­dan, Khary Pierre, Jim­my Nee­sham, Seekkuge Prasan­na, Amir Jan­goo, An­der­son Phillip, Mark Deyal, Tion Web­ster, Javon Sear­les, Akeal Ho­sein, Ali Khan.

Pa­tri­ots: St. Kitts/Nevis Pa­tri­ots: Alzarri Joseph, Fabi­an Allen, Evin Lewis, Car­los Brath­waite, Rassie van der Dussen, Lau­rie Evans, Shel­don Cot­trell, De­von Thomas, Rayad Em­rit, Shamarh Brooks, Je­re­mi­ah Louis, Do­minic Drakes, Afif Hos­sain, Keron Cot­toy, Akeem Jor­dan, Us­ama Mir, Aaron Jones, Mo­ham­mad Hafeez, Ja­son Mo­hammed, Kjorn Ot­ley.