Things went from bad to worse when Jason Holder, who was promoted to No.3 in the order as a pinch-hitter, fell for a golden duck to a yorker from Santokie, leaving the Tridents in a precarious position at 8/2. Holder’s wicket brought the experienced Pakistan all-rounder Shoaib Malik, who along with Dwayne Smith had to do a rebuilding job, to the crease.

The two of them went about their business serenely and punished the bad balls when they came along to take the team to 48/2 at the end of the Powerplay. Just when the momentum was starting to shift towards the batting team, rain intervened and took the players off the field for a brief duration.

Kieron Pollard fell off the very next delivery from Narine as he top-edged a tossed up delivery on off-stump to Narine, who took a good low catch on his follow-through, leaving the Tridents in a bit of strife once again at 96/4.

Malik, one of Tridents’ overseas recruits, displayed his maturity as he didn’t look to many too risks in the end overs and, by scoring 55* off 42 balls, ensured that the Tridents got to a defendable total of 152 in their 20 overs, when there was a serious risk of their innings totally falling apart at one stage.

With Hafeez and Jimmy Neesham falling in the 12th over to leave the Warriors at 76/4, their chances of chasing down 153 looked all but over. The Warriors skipper Denesh Ramdin and Chris Barnwell, though, gave them a semblance of hope by taking 15 runs off the 14th over of the innings and brought the required run rate down to a manageable 11 per over off the last 5 overs.

With the game nicely poised and a close finish in prospect, rain unfortunately intervened for the 3rd time, and the result had to be decided by the D/L method, a really pitiful way for the tournament to come to an end. The Tridents, however, were deserved winners having been top of the table at the end of the group stage.

Shoaib Malik was awarded the man-of-the-match for his crucial and much-needed half-century while Lendl Simmons, the leading run-scorer in this year’s tournament with 446 runs, took home the man-of-the-series award.

Brief Scores:

Barbados Tridents – 152/6 in 20 overs (Dwayne Smith 59, Shoaib Malik 55*; Krishmar Santokie 3/19)

beat

by 8 runs (D/L method)

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