CPL 2016: Tallawahs become 1st team to qualify for knockouts after Tridents victory

The Jamaica Tallawahs have secured a place in the knockout stages of the Caribbean Premier League CPL with a win over the Barbados Tridents at Sabina Park The Tallawahs have won all four of their home games as they became the first team to gain a place at finals week in St Kitts amp NevisA brilliant innings from Chadwick Walton and runs from Kumar Sangakkara and Rovman Powell allowed the Tallawahs to post their highest total of Hero CPL 2016 in a game that was shorted as a result of a rain stormThe Tridents chase petered out quickly with the only bright spark being another half century for Nicholas Pooran who continues to impressThe contest was reduced to 18 overs a side but once the skies had cleared Chadwick Walton scored at a frightening lick The Tallawahs lost Chris Gayle early but it didnt matter as Walton made 97 painfully close to his first ever T20 hundred Walton shared a partnership of 127 runs with Sangakkara the best stand for the Tallawahs at this yearrsquos CPLWalton had not had a great Hero CPL to this point but here he was in fine form He hit nine fours and five sixes as he helped the Tallawahs to an impressive 1955 off their 18 overs He fell in the final over of the innings when he tried to smash Ravi Rampaul over midwicket for six to bring up his ton He didnrsquot quite get all of it a rarity in this knock and Ahmed Shahzad took the catchSangakkara was the perfect foil for Walton the Sri Lankan great was happy to turn the strike over to his partner while taking boundary hitting opportunities when they arose He made 50 from 31 balls at a very decent strike rate of 161 but he was made to look pedestrian by Walton ndash evidence of just how impressive the Jamaican openerrsquos knock wasWhen Sangakkara departed Andre Russell replaced him with 23 balls left in the Tallawahs innings and he was dismissed for a golden duck The loss of a player as important as Russell for no score could well have slowed down the Tallawahs but find of the tournament Rovman Powell had other ideas He blasted 34 runs from 14 balls including four MaximumsChasing 196 to win the Tridents lost Kyle Hope to a superb ball from Dale Steyn in his first over a ball outside the line of off stump and moving away from Hope who edged it through to the keeper to leave his team 151The Tridents have lost the services of AB de Villiers and with him unavailable they made the brave call to promote Akeal Hosein to number threeHosein has a firstclass hundred to his name but his high score in T20 cricket before this match was 12 not out It was a huge ask for the young man to score at the required rate against the pace of Russell Steyn and Kesrick Williams The experiment wasnrsquot a success as Hosein managed just eight runs from 13 balls before being well caught at long on off the bowling of USA international Timroy AllenThe score was at 443 with the required rate already up to nearly 13 an over with Nicholas Pooran and Shoaib Malik at the crease and they needed a significant partnership from those two batsmen to bring them back into the contest When Malik departed 11 runs later the Tridents needed a miracle from captain Kieron Pollard to stave off defeatIt was too much even for Pollard who was dismissed by Dale Steyn in his last match for the Tallawahs before he too leaves and the paceman finished with figures of 427 picking up his 200th T20 wicket in the processPooran continued to impress for the Tridents as he scored the fastest ever fifty for the Barbados Tridents but there was too much for the 20yearold to do on his own He was eventually run out for 51 from 25 as the Tridents stumbled to a 36 run defeat