One Man Made 114, the Other Ten Made 44: Moqim's 4 for 14 Wins Antigua & Barbuda Falcons Their First CPL Title

Some finals are decided by the best innings. This one was decided by what happened at the other end of it. Maaz Sadaqat opened the batting for Jamaica Kingsmen, stayed until the fifth ball of the last over, and made 114 from 58 balls with eight fours and nine sixes. It was, by some distance, the best batting anyone produced at Kensington Oval on Sunday night. The ten men who batted with him made 44 between them.

That gap is the whole story of the CPL 2026 Final. Antigua & Barbuda Falcons could not get Sadaqat out, so they got everybody else out. Sufyan Moqim took 4 for 14, Jamaica slid from 110 for 2 to 113 for 6 in the space of eleven balls, and a total that had looked headed for 200 finished at 170 for 9. The Falcons then chased it in 16.4 overs for the loss of two wickets. A franchise that had never won the title won it with 20 balls to spare.

For eleven overs the Falcons were losing this final. Jamaica had lost Kirk McKenzie in the first over and Keacy Carty in the fourth, but Sadaqat and Saim Ayub added 80 off 46 balls for the third wicket. Sadaqat reached fifty off 27 balls; Jamaica were 97 for 2 at the strategic timeout and brought up 100 in the 11th over. At that rate the Kingsmen were on course for something near 200.

Then Moqim came back. Ayub was caught by Hasan Nawaz off the second ball of the 12th over; three balls later Rovman Powell, whose finishing had carried Jamaica through Qualifier 2, was caught by Springer for a third-ball duck. Shadab trapped Romaine Morris lbw in the next over — Jamaica reviewed, and lost — and Moqim had Hassan Khan caught by Seales first ball of the 14th. From 110 for 2 to 113 for 6. Moqim later had Keemo Paul stumped by Jangoo for his fourth.

The chase itself was calm. Rahkeem Cornwall hit two fours and two sixes in six balls before Saim Ayub bowled him, and the Falcons still had 76 on the board after the powerplay. Evin Lewis made a brisk 38 before Vitel Lawes bowled him with the score on 84 in the 8th over. After that Amir Jangoo and Hasan Nawaz never looked in trouble. They added 89 off 54 balls without taking a risk they did not need to take, Jangoo finishing on 57 not out from 34 and Hasan Nawaz on 47 not out from 35. The finish was quiet, and it was supposed to be.

There is no need to be hard on the Kingsmen. They finished fourth in the league, came through the Eliminator and then chased 207 against Guyana in Qualifier 2 — two knockout wins in quick succession before this final. But depth is what had got them here, and depth is what failed on the night. Powell, Morris, Hassan Khan, Paul and Andre Russell made six runs between them from 25 balls. Russell was caught by Shadab for 2 with 18.3 overs gone, when the last partnership of any size — 32 off 17 balls with Sadaqat — was finally starting to add up.

The bowling had its moments early. Ayub bowled Cornwall off the last ball of the first over, and Keemo Paul (3-0-18-0) kept things tight. But 170 was about 20 short against a batting line-up that opened with Cornwall and Lewis, and once the powerplay went for 76 there was no pressure to build. The lesson from the loss is simple: against a spin attack this good, Jamaica needed someone to stay with Sadaqat through the middle overs, and nobody did.

Kensington Oval kept the same pattern it had shown all through the playoffs. The side chasing won again, and the Falcons chose to field when they won the toss. Early on the surface was good for batting — Jamaica scored 59 in the powerplay and hit 100 in 10.3 overs — but once the ball got softer it gripped for the wrist-spinners. Moqim and Shadab bowled eight overs for 42 runs and five wickets between them; the Falcons' other bowlers went for more than nine an over. In the second innings the surface looked a lot easier, and the chase went at more than ten an over with only two wickets lost.

Moqim's four overs cost 14 runs and brought four wickets: Ayub, Powell, Hassan Khan and Paul. Three of those were caught and one was stumped. All four came after Jamaica had reached 97 for 2 at the halfway mark and were looking to attack, so Moqim was bowling at batters who had to take risks. His left-arm wrist-spin drew the mistakes, and fielders in the right places took them. In Qualifier 1 he took 4 for 13 against Guyana; in the final he took 4 for 14. In both knockout games Moqim did the damage. Shadab Khan, from the other end, took the headlines and the Player of the Series award.

Sadaqat deserves his own paragraph. His 114 was reportedly the first century in a CPL final, and it came after 112 off 49 in the Eliminator. Nine sixes, and he stayed until the 20th over while wickets fell all around him. He was finally caught by Joshua James off Shamar Springer's only over, with one ball of the innings left. That's the kind of innings that deserved a better scoreline around it.

Our final preview leaned towards the Falcons, and they won. We said the spin attack of Shadab and Moqim would suit Kensington Oval, and it did: they took five wickets for 42 in eight overs. We named Maaz Sadaqat as the batter Jamaica's hopes depended on and said the real question was whether he could handle the Falcons' wrist-spin. Sadaqat's own answer was yes — he made 114 and it was Springer, a seamer, who got him — but his team-mates' answer was no. We also named Fakhar Zaman as a threat at the top of the order, but the Falcons opened with Cornwall and Lewis instead, and the runs that won the chase came from Jangoo and Hasan Nawaz, two players we barely mentioned. We'll own that one. Our final preview page also said Powell made 75 in Qualifier 2; he actually made 40 not out off 17. That was our error, and we've corrected it on the preview page.

CPL 2026 ends with a new name on the trophy and two first-time finalists. For the Falcons it caps a playoff run in which they beat the league leaders by nine wickets with 88 balls to spare and then won the final with 20 to spare. Their bowling core of Shadab, Moqim, Joseph and Seales is the obvious base to keep together for 2027. For Jamaica, the finish is disappointing, but the season still produced Sadaqat's two knockout hundreds — 226 runs in the Eliminator and the final combined — and a Qualifier 2 chase of 207. The next job is building a middle order to support him. For now, the Falcons are champions, won for them by a left-arm wrist-spinner's four overs on a night when the other side had the best batter.