Guptill, Hafeez give Guyana convincing win

Guyana Amazon Warriors 149 for 9 (Guptill 73, Emrit 3-27) beat Barbados Tridents 122 (Malik 48, Hafeez 3-19) by 27 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

The Guyana Amazon Warriors moved to second place after earning two points with a convincing 27-run win against Barbados Tridents in Port-of-Spain. They are now level with the Jamaica Tallawahs, who have a game in hand, with six points and and two behind Barbados.

Guyana chose to bat and lost Lendl Simmons on the first ball of the match to Jason Holder. After the slow start, Martin Guptill and Mohammad Hafeez built a solid platform with a 98-run partnership, Guptill being particularly harsh on the bowlers with four fours and as many sixes. They were 69 for 1 after 10 overs and Hafeez struck a six in each of the next two overs to lift the run-rate to nearly seven and a half. He fell for 35 when he handed a catch to Kieron Pollard at long-on off Dwayne Smith in the 14th over just after Guptill brought up his fifty. Smith returned in the 16th over and was smashed for 20 runs this time as Guptill hit six, four and six off the last three balls of the over to take Guyana to 125.

With four overs to go, Guyana looked set to go past 150, but Barbados took six wickets in the last 24 balls to keep Guyana to 149. Rayad Emrit first got rid of Guptill and James Franklin in his third over which brought on two new batsmen - Ramnaresh Sarwan and Christopher Barnwell. Both of them were dismissed by left-arm spinner Shakib Al Hasan in the very next over, when Pollard jumped at long-on to end Barnwell's innings for a duck and Sarwan also gave a catch to long-on to be caught by Ashley Nurse for 1. Emrit's last over got three more wickets, including two run-outs. He first had Denesh Ramdin caught at midwicket for a duck, got hit for a four by Sunil Narine on the next ball but the batsman failed to make his ground during the second run two balls later. And then on the last ball, Veerasammy Permaul also fell short of his ground while trying to complete the second run. Guyana's last six batsmen could manage only 10 runs together.

Barbados also lost a wicket early when Kirk Edwards was stumped off Permaul in the third over, which was a wicket maiden. Smith and Shoaib Mailk kept them steady from there scoring at less than run-a-ball. However, pressure and Hafeez got the better of them when the offspinner took two wickets in two balls, first trapping Smith lbw and then getting Umar Akmal stumped with a short ball. Hafeez didn't stop there as he dismissed Kyle Mayers for 2 in his next over. No. 6 batsman, Pollard tried to hit out but was bowled for 1 and his wicket was followed by Shakib's when Stevan Jacobs had him caught at long-off. Barbados lost five wickets for 15 runs which virtually ended their chase in the 14th over as they needed another 86 form the last six overs.

Malik top-scored with 48 and fell in the penultimate over but only four double-digit scores from Barbados weren't enough to take them close to their target of 150.