Twitter Reactions: Shane Rutherford and Shimron Hetmyer's savage knocks take the Warriors to second place

In the last league game of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), it was the Guyana Amazon Warriors who were up against the Trinbago Knight Riders. While it was a certainty that the Knights would finish at the top despite a loss here, it was a crucial one for the Warriors. They had to win this game by a big margin to better their NRR and get to the second spot on the points table. A stupendous knock from Shane Rutherford helped them do exactly that.

This match has witnessed one of the best chases ever in the CPL. Not many would have fancied the Guyana Amazon Warriors to finish in the top two after the kind of start they’ve got to. But, the Warriors amassed a massive 91 runs in the last 5.1 overs to bag this massive win. Shimron Hetmyer was equally brilliant with the bat for the home team.

They chased down the target in the stipulated overs and pushed the Jamaica Tallawahs behind to get to the top two. Hence, this will give them an extra opportunity in the playoffs if required. Also, they can proceed to the final directly if they win the first qualifier. It is going to be these two teams which will meet again for ‘Qualifier-1’ on Tuesday in Guyana.

The Knights struggled to find the momentum with the bat

The Trinbago Knight Riders were put into bat first after they lost the toss. The team had a horrific start to the innings and was down to 23/3 within no time. With Chris Lynn departing back to Australia, Brendon McCullum opened the innings with Colin Munro. Both the openers scored 9 and 6 runs respectively which was quite disappointing. Soon, Colin Ingram, who replaced Chris Lynn in the side was dismissed for just 4 runs.

Denesh Ramdin, after a brilliant knock in the last game, crawled up to a 31-ball 32. DM Bravo also didn’t play the most convincing innings as he remained unbeaten on 42 off 34 cherries. With Kevon Cooper scoring 30 off 14 balls towards the end, the Knights ended up putting 154 runs on the board.

Shane Rutherford was unbelievable with the bat

All the Warriors had was 15.3 overs to chase the target down. But, they lost two early wickets in the chase as Luke Ronchi and Jason Mohammed walked back to the pavilion for 1 and 5 runs respectively. However, Cameron Delport kept the fireworks going from the other end and perished after piling up 37 runs off 27 balls. Even though Delport tried hard, the team could only get to 42 runs in the powerplay mounting up the pressure on the other batsmen.

At this point in time, Shimron Hetmyer played a brilliant knock of 59 runs which came off just 30 balls. He bossed his way to a 24-ball fifty and was tonking the Knights’ bowlers all around the ground. Although he got out in the 14th over, the team was just inches away from victory. While Hetmyer proved to be the magician at one end, we’ve had a butcher in the form of Shane Rutherford at the other. Rutherford disdained the bowlers and hitting them for cleaners out of the park. With six maximums in his innings, he was unbeaten on 45 of an insane 13 balls as the team took just 14.3 overs to chase the target down.

Twitterati was awestruck with the insane hitting from Shimron Hetmyer and Shane Rutherford. They congratulated the Warriors for this memorable performance. At the same time, the Knights’ fans were severely disappointed as the teams’ six-match winning streak has ended.

Here is how Twitter reacted: