Eight Overs, One Six From the Captain, and Guyana Are in the WCPL Final

Three days after beating the Barbados Tridents in a full twenty-over game at Kensington Oval, the Guyana Amazon Warriors did it again in a match less than half that length. A wet outfield cut this playoff to eight overs a side, and in a format that leaves almost no room to recover from a bad start, Barbados made one and Guyana did not.

The Tridents were 16 for 2 after 3.1 overs. The Warriors were 26 for 1 at the end of their powerplay and passed 50 in 4.2 overs, and that difference in tempo decided the match long before Chloe Tryon walked out and hit her first ball for six. Guyana won by seven wickets with four balls to spare, and Tazmin Brits was Player of the Match against the same opponents for the second time in four days.

An eight-over innings has no settling-in period, and Barbados spent three overs looking for one. The powerplay brought 14 without loss, and at the end of the third over Qiana Joseph was retired out on 3 from 12 balls with the score 16 for 1. Kiran Navgire was stumped by Shemaine Campbelle off Erin Burns first ball, and the Tridents were 16 for 2 with less than five overs left.

Hayley Matthews did what she could, hitting two sixes in her 14-ball 22, but she was run out at 40 for 3 in the sixth over. From there it was Maddy Green's innings. Her unbeaten 30 from 16 balls was the top score of the match, and she added 13 with Suzie Bates and an unbroken 16 from the last eight balls with Pooja Vastrakar. Barbados brought up 50 only in the seventh over, 6.3 to be exact, and the last 17 balls produced 29 — a finish that would have been competitive attached to a better start.

Erin Burns was the most economical bowler of the match: two overs, 11 runs and Navgire's wicket. Shamilia Connell removed Bates for 9, caught by Sheneta Grimmond, whose own two overs cost 26.

Guyana lost Eboni Brathwaite in the first over, caught by Deol off Shawnisha Hector for 2 with the score on 3. It did not slow them at all. Brits and Campbelle added 51 for the second wicket and reached the fifty stand in 23 balls, with Campbelle's 22 coming from just 12 deliveries and including two sixes. By the end of the powerplay the Warriors were 26 for 1, almost double what Barbados had managed at the same stage.

Barbados did get Campbelle, and they needed a successful review to do it: at 4.6 she was caught by keeper Mangru off Qiana Joseph, 54 for 2. That left 16 to win from three overs. Brits added 15 with Nadine de Klerk before Suzie Bates bowled de Klerk for 4 at 69 for 3, one run short of the target. Tryon, the Warriors captain, came in and hit the only ball she faced for six.

Five Tridents bowlers were used and Hector and Joseph bowled an over each, taking a wicket apiece. Matthews and Afy Fletcher, the two bowlers who had been the pick of the attack on September 13, went for 21 and 20 from their two overs each without a wicket.

With a wet outfield reducing the match to eight overs a side and each bowler limited to two, the powerplay ran only to 2.2 overs and there was no time to rebuild an innings. Guyana's decision to field looks right in that context: chasing a known target in a game this short takes the guesswork out of when to attack.

The format punished Barbados' opening overs more than any other phase. Joseph's 12 balls for 3 were a quarter of the innings' deliveries before she was retired out. Guyana, by contrast, reached 50 in 4.2 overs, and Brits' 35 from 23 balls meant the chase was never out of her hands.

Brits' 35 not out from 23 balls, with three fours and two sixes, was the anchor of a chase that needed one. She was there at the fall of the first wicket and there at the end, sharing in the 51-run stand with Campbelle and adding 15 more with de Klerk. It follows her 46 from 41 balls in the league meeting on September 13, which also earned the award — two matches against Barbados at Kensington, two very different formats, and the same result.

This playoff didn't have a CricIntel preview, so there is no call to grade. Our review of the September 13 league game said Barbados' problem was the back end of their innings: a top order that scored freely and a finish that did not. Here the pattern flipped. The last 17 balls of the Tridents' innings brought 29, and it was the first three overs — 16 for 2 and a retired-out opener — that cost them. Two losses to the same side in four days, from two different failure points, is how a season ends.

The Guyana Amazon Warriors Women go into the WCPL 2026 Final against Trinbago Knight Riders Women, who finished top of the league table, at Kensington Oval, with a scheduled start of 23:30 IST on September 17. The Warriors came into this game second in the table and have now beaten the third-placed side twice in four days, both times with Brits as Player of the Match.

The Barbados Tridents Women are eliminated. They leave with Hayley Matthews' 50 from the league meeting and Maddy Green's unbeaten 30 here as the high points. Both defeats to Guyana came in chases led by Brits.