GAW storms back to beat TKR in WCPL final

Chedean Na­tion pro­duced one of the great­est come­backs in Li­ma­col WC­PL his­to­ry, pow­er­ing the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors to their maid­en ti­tle with a thrilling two-wick­et vic­to­ry over the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers at the Kens­ing­ton Oval.

Walk­ing to the crease at num­ber eight with the War­riors strug­gling at 71 for 6 in the 13th over and need­ing 74 runs from 46 balls to reach their chal­leng­ing tar­get of 145, Na­tion un­leashed a stun­ning coun­ter­at­tack.

The 39-year-old smashed four six­es in a sen­sa­tion­al un­beat­en cameo of 39 from just 21 balls, turn­ing the match on its head.

Cap­tain Chloe Try­on joined Na­tion at the crease with the War­riors still 74 runs away from vic­to­ry, and to­geth­er they swung the mo­men­tum de­ci­sive­ly back in favour of the even­tu­al cham­pi­ons.

The pair blast­ed 40 from just 23 balls be­fore Try­on was bowled by Lau­ra Har­ris for 32 in the 17th over. When Shene­ta Grim­mond fell for 10 in the 19th over, the Knight Rid­ers were back in con­tention, with the War­riors still need­ing 16 runs from nine balls.

But Na­tion re­fused to buck­le.

Tak­ing on seam­er Shikha Pandey and off-spin­ner Kar­ish­ma Ramharack, she kept her com­po­sure to bring the War­riors home with three balls to spare, fin­ish­ing on 149 for 8 and spark­ing wild cel­e­bra­tions.

It was Na­tion’s first op­por­tu­ni­ty with the bat in on­ly her sec­ond ap­pear­ance of the sea­son, and she made it count when it mat­tered most.

The War­riors’ chase had ap­peared to be slip­ping away af­ter their top or­der wob­bled. In-form bat­ters Tazmin Brits, who made 22, and She­maine Camp­belle, who scored 9, were among the first five bat­ters dis­missed be­fore the 10 over mark, hand­ing the mo­men­tum to the Knight Rid­ers.

The spir­it­ed TKR bowl­ing at­tack was led by cap­tain De­an­dra Dot­tin, Ramharack and Pandey, who claimed two wick­ets apiece.

Ear­li­er, Dot­tin won the toss and opt­ed to bat un­der sun­ny con­di­tions. Debu­tant Sush­ma Ver­ma top-scored with 39, an­chor­ing the Knight Rid­ers’ top and mid­dle or­der, be­fore Ma­rizanne Kapp and Pandey pro­vid­ed a late surge to lift TKR to 145 for 6.

War­riors seam­er Shab­n­im Is­mail fin­ished with two wick­ets, while Shamil­ia Con­nell de­liv­ered an eco­nom­i­cal four-over spell, claim­ing 1 for 18.

The tri­umph marked the third time the War­riors had reached the WC­PL fi­nal, fol­low­ing ap­pear­ances in 2023 and 2025, but this time they fi­nal­ly com­plet­ed the jour­ney to the ti­tle.