It was an eerily similar start for the Barbados Royals when they decided to bat first after winning the toss at Basseterre in St Kitts. They lost the openers and the middle order and were soon 82-5 in only the 13th over and everyone including the best of the Royals fans would have thought that it was all coming to a similar end.
But there was one man who hadn’t been part of the team’s first two defeats this season and he didn’t know how it was to let go, therefore he held on to it and with Glenn Phillips, Raymon Reifer had an unbeaten partnership of 79 runs in just 46 balls and took the Royals to their highest total this season of 161, giving them something to fight. While Reifer made 31 off 20 balls, Phillips scored a patient 56 off 46 balls.
But it wasn’t just in the batting, Reifer came back and made a point with the ball as well, picking up three crucial wickets including that of Andre Russell for a golden duck at that. Thus one change it all took for the Barbados side to register their first win in the tournament and the 30-year-old all-rounder was rightly named Man of the Match.
Chasing the 162, set up by the Royals, Tallawahs who smothered it all over the park just a day ago against St Lucia Kings got off to a worst possible start, losing all their top three, all of whom were responsible for the Kings carnage the other day, with only 23 runs on board. Mohammad Amir, Reifer and skipper Jason Holder were rewarded with the wickets.
It was hard to come back from there, but with Russell and Carlos Brathwaite waiting in the wings, impossible didn’t seem like a word in the Royals dictionary. Brathwaite did put up a 66 run partnership with Shamarh Brooks to steady the ship. But just as he was about to let loose and allow Russell who was to come after him some luxury to settle in, Reifer struck twice in two balls to crash all the hopes that Tallawahs might have had of a comeback.
From there on, with only the bowling all-rounders left to accompany Brroks, only formalities seemed to have been left and they were completed with Brooks getting out on the second ball of the 20th over with still 18 runs needed for the win. In the end, Tallawahs remained 15 runs behind. Brooks top-scored with 47 from 45 balls.
In their next assignment, the two teams will collide once again on Wednesday, September 01 (IST) at the same venue.