Tridents beat Empress by 3 runs in WCPL thriller

Tridents 140 for 7 (Bates 39*, Green 39; Taylor 4-29) beat Empress 137 for 4 (Lanning 57, Hunter 47; Fraser 1-13) by 3 runs 

The Barbados Tridents pulled off a remarkable comeback win to keep themselves in the hunt for a fourth consecutive Limacol WCPL title as they squeezed out the Jamaica Empress with brilliant death bowling.

The Tridents set a competitive score thanks to a partnership of 78 between Suzie Bates and Maddy Green to give the Tridents a fighting chance with the ball after a sluggish start to their innings.

In reply, the class of Meg Lanning looked to have made the difference as she made a brilliant 57 as she and Amy Hunter looked to be taking the game away from the reigning champions.

However, once Lanning and Hunter failed, the Empress middle order struggled in the face of a Tridents attack, who kept things very tight to win by three runs in a thrilling finish.

Having won the toss, the Tridents elected to bat and struggled in the face of good new ball bowling from Rosemary Mair and Chinelle Henry, but it was Nonkululeko Mlaba who made the first breakthrough when she had Qiana Joseph caught and bowled. 

Hayley Matthews looked to play the anchor role, but she found it difficult to get the ball away as she made 21 from 23. When Matthews departed, the Tridents were 56/4 inside the 10th over and with a lot of work left to do.

It was from there that the New Zealand pair of Bates and Green brought the Tridents back into the game with a partnership that was full of class and innovation as both players looked to sweep and reverse sweep the Empress bowlers.

Stafanie Taylor claimed three wickets in the final over to finish with figures of 4 for 29 as the Tridents didn’t quite make the most of the platform in the death overs that Bates and Green had given them.

When the Empress went out to bat, it became the Lanning and Hunter show as the pair put on the highest opening stand in WCPL history (104). Such was the ease with which the pair went about the chase that it was almost a surprise when the first wicket fell: Hunter well caught by Bates off the bowling of Fletcher.

It was when the opening stand was broken that things changed. It appeared that the Empress were cruising to victory, but Bates and Afy Fletcher combined to make scoring very hard in the final overs. Qiana Joseph then stepped up to help the Tridents limit the Jamaican franchise to 23 runs in the last 5, restricting them to 137 for 4 from their allotment.