TAROUBA, Trinidad, CMC – Reigning champions Barbados Tridents crumbled under the pressure of a venue record run chase and slumped to their second defeat in three games with a 19-run loss to Trinbago Knight Riders here yesterday.
Asked to chase 186 after Darren Bravo and New Zealander Colin Munro’s fifties had propelled TKR to the highest total of the new tournament, Tridents started strongly but then faded badly to end on 166 for six off their 20 overs.
Johnson Charles smashed his 13th Caribbean Premier League half-century as he top-scored with 52 but his opening partner Shai Hope laboured for 36 off 38 deliveries, as Tridents surrendered their early momentum in the chase.
By the time captain Jason Holder arrived to belt an unbeaten 34 from 19 balls, the game was already gone and TKR easily notched their third win on the trot to ease to the top of the standings with six points.
TKR had earlier topped St Lucia Zouks’ 172 on Saturday to post a new stadium record of 185 for three off their 20 overs at the Brian Lara Academy, and leave Tridents with a very difficult run chase.
Opener Sunil Narine (8) failed for the first time and Lendl Simmons never suggested permanence in a run-a-ball 21 but Bravo oozed class in an unbeaten 54 off 36 balls while Munro struck an entertaining 50 off 30 deliveries.
Captain Kieron Pollard combined with Bravo at the death to accelerate the scoring, thrilling with a 17-ball unbeaten 41 as TKR gathered 69 runs off the last four overs of the innings.
Opting to bowl first, Tridents were stingy up front and TKR scraped just 15 runs off the first four overs as seamers Holder and Kyle Mayers proved disciplined.
Simmons tried to kickstart the innings in the next over by swatting Holder over square leg of six but succumbed two balls later to a catch at mid on, attempting another big shot.
Munro arrived to dominate a 41-run, second wicket stand with a sedate Narine, before adding a further 24 for the third wicket with Bravo.
He thrashed 18 from the sixth over sent down by Mayers en route to seven fours and two sixes overall but even so, TKR were ticking along at just above six runs per over when Narine lost his middle and leg stumps to left-arm seamer Raymon Reifer in the 10th over.
Munro followed in the 13th over, miscuing off-spinner Ashley Nurse into Rashid Khan’s lap at deep mid-wicket, leaving TKR on 87 for three and with two new batsmen at the crease.
But the experienced pair turned it on quickly in an unbroken 98-run, fourth wicket stand, Bravo crunching four fours and sixes – the last of which came from the final ball of the innings – and Pollard blasting a single four and four sixes.
Charles then put Tridents quickly on top, belting four fours and three sixes in a 68-run, opening stand off 48 balls which left TKR rattled.
Leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed broke the stand in the eighth over, however, removing Charles’s off-stump in his first over and when New Zealander Corey Anderson was run out in the 10th over for two, Tridents found themselves struggling on 75 for two at the half-way mark.
Fawad, whose three overs cost just 14 runs, then combined with left-arm spinner Khary Pierre (1-19) and off-spinner Sunil Narine (1-17) to dry up the scoring in miserly spells as Tridents managed only 35 runs from seven overs to be 110 for four at the end of the 15th over.
With the required run rate hovering at just over 15, Holder went on the attack with two fours and three sixes but the bulk of those runs came in the penultimate over from medium pacer Dwayne Bravo with TKR all but safe.
