Seventeen Days After 116, the Falcons Bowl the Warriors Out for 117 — and Guyana's Unbeaten Run Ends at Six

For six matches, nobody in CPL 2026 had found the loose thread in the Guyana Amazon Warriors. They had won six from six, and mostly in the same way: take wickets early, strangle the middle overs with spin, chase whatever was left. Against the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons they won the toss, chose to bowl, and for ten overs the plan held. The Falcons were 69 for 2 at halfway, and Mohammad Nabi and Imran Tahir would finish their eight overs having conceded 44 between them.

The Falcons then scored 72 from the last five overs, Shadab Khan making 30 not out from nine balls, and set 183. Guyana reached 33 for 0 in fourteen deliveries and were bowled out for 117 in 14.2 overs. On August 23 in North Sound, the Warriors had bowled the Falcons out for 116 and won with 61 balls to spare. Seventeen days later, at the Warriors' own ground, the Falcons returned the favour almost to the run — and in doing so became the first side to beat Guyana this season, by 65 runs.

The Falcons' innings was two innings, and the first one belonged to Guyana. Karima Gore and Evin Lewis made 23 and 22, Lewis with two sixes, and the powerplay closed at 44 for 1 — useful, not alarming. Both openers fell to spin, Gore caught by Gurbaz off Khary Pierre and Lewis leg-before to Tahir, and at the midpoint the Falcons were 69 for 2 with a scoreboard that pointed towards something in the 150s. Amir Jangoo's 27 from 30, which eventually ended in a catch to Hetmyer off Nabi, held an end without ever quite loosening the grip.

Hasan Nawaz was the batter who refused that arithmetic. His 36 from 27, with three fours and two sixes, was the innings' top score, and he was at the crease as the Falcons passed 100 in the fourteenth over; Moeen Ali added 18 from 12 with two sixes of his own. But wickets fell at 102, 120 and 136, and when the fifth went down the Falcons were 136 for 5 with thirteen balls left, and a total of around 160 looked like the honest outcome.

Shadab Khan and Fabian Allen added 46 in those thirteen balls. Shadab's share was 30 from nine, with two fours and three sixes; Allen's 11 not out from seven. The Falcons went from 110 after fifteen overs to 182, and a target that Guyana would have fancied became one that required everything to go right.

Nothing did. Rahmanullah Gurbaz hit three sixes in eight balls and the Warriors were 33 without loss, and then Alzarri Joseph bowled Gurbaz and had Shai Hope caught by Moeen for 0 in the same over. He came back to remove Mavendra Dindyal, caught by Seales for a brisk 25 from 13, and Joshua James — reportedly with his first ball — had Shimron Hetmyer caught by Lewis for 4. Fifty-nine for four in the sixth over. Shadab and Sufyan Moqim then shared four wickets in four overs: Quentin Sampson and Dwaine Pretorius bowled by Shadab, Romario Shepherd caught off Moqim, Shamar Joseph bowled by him. Ninety-nine for eight after 9.5 overs. Alzarri came back to bowl Tahir, and James trapped Nabi to finish it with 34 balls of the chase unused.

It is worth being fair to Guyana, because the defeat was lopsided and the causes were not. Their spinners did their jobs. Tahir 4-0-21-1, Nabi 4-0-23-1, Khary Pierre 3-0-27-1: eleven overs for 71 on a night when the other end was conceding almost twelve an over. The problem was the pace bowling at the death. Romario Shepherd's three overs cost 51 and Shamar Joseph's four went for 39, and the nine overs of seam the Warriors bowled were worth 106 runs to the Falcons. A total that should have been 160 became 182 in the overs Guyana's quicks were asked to close out.

Nor was the chase a failure of intent. Seventy-one for four after the powerplay was ahead of the required rate; the Warriors were scoring at nearly twelve an over in the first six. What they could not do was keep wickets. The two batters who have carried them this season — Hope and Hetmyer — made four runs from ten balls between them, and from the end of the powerplay Guyana lost four wickets for 28 runs in less than four overs. Mohammad Nabi walked in at 54 for 3 and was the last man out at 117, having watched six partners dismissed at the other end in a little over nine overs. His 23 from 22 was a lonely piece of work.

One bad night in seven does not undo a season. But our last Guyana review wondered whether six comfortable wins reflected dominance or a nerve that had simply never been tested. This was the first time all season the Warriors were properly pressed — a big target, early wickets, genuine pace — and on this occasion they did not find an answer.

We have no pitch report to lean on, so the numbers will have to speak, and they are consistent with each other. Across both innings, the spinners bowled 18 overs for 108 runs and took seven wickets — six an over. The seamers bowled 16.2 overs for 179 runs and took eight wickets — nearly eleven an over. Pace took wickets on both sides; it simply cost a great deal more to do so.

The more interesting contrast is between the two halves. The Falcons' 182 was built on a platform that was, at halfway, below par — and then on fifteen overs of fairly ordinary batting followed by five of something else. Guyana's chase never reached the phase where a surface's character matters much; it was decided by a single Alzarri Joseph over that removed Gurbaz and Hope. Whatever help batting second under lights can offer at Providence, Guyana were not in the game long enough to use it.

There are cricketers whose value is best measured in overs, and others whose value is best measured in balls. Shadab Khan spent nine deliveries at the crease at Providence — walking in at 120 for 4 in the seventeenth over — and they changed the target by something like twenty runs. Two fours and three sixes in an unbeaten 30. He said afterwards, according to WIC News, that he went out with a positive mindset and had specific bowlers in mind to target, knowing where he wanted to hit them. The scorecard does not say whom he targeted; it does say that Guyana's death bowling went for 72 in five overs.

Then he bowled four overs of leg-spin for 19 — the most economical full spell of the match, cheaper even than Tahir or Nabi — and bowled Sampson and Pretorius as the Warriors' middle order came apart. Alzarri Joseph's four wickets were the louder performance, and there is a strong case for them. But Shadab was the only player on the field who decided the match with both bat and ball, and on a night when the tournament's best side was beaten by 65 runs, that is the kind of contribution that tends to be remembered.

We got the result wrong. Our preview leaned towards the Guyana Amazon Warriors on the weight of an unbeaten record, home conditions and the first meeting of the season, in which the Warriors bowled the Falcons out for 116. That meeting, for the record, was in North Sound on August 23, not at Providence as our preview stated — a correction we owe readers.

Our GAW player to watch was Mohammad Nabi, and we set him a specific bar: four overs for under 25 with two wickets. He bowled four overs for 23 and took one — half the job, done well, on a night when the damage was being done at the other end. Our ABF player to watch, Rahkeem Cornwall, did not feature in either the batting or the bowling figures, which made that call moot.

What the preview did get right was the hinge. We wrote that if Alzarri Joseph could remove Hope and Dindyal in the powerplay, "the equation shifts". He removed both inside the powerplay, and Gurbaz as well. We also called Shadab the most destructive finisher in the tournament; nine balls at Providence did nothing to argue with that. The honest summary is that we identified the ways Guyana could lose and then backed them not to — and on this occasion, every one of those ways arrived together.

The result moved the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons to the top of the table on 13 points with their league programme complete — six wins, three defeats and a no-result from ten matches. The Warriors dropped to second on 12, but with games in hand, and it took them just one more night to reclaim first place: they beat the Saint Lucia Kings by four wickets at Providence the following evening to reach 14 points and seal top spot.

The table after 31 league matches: Guyana Amazon Warriors 14 points from eight (NRR +1.029), Antigua and Barbuda Falcons 13 from ten, Jamaica Kingsmen 8 from nine, Saint Lucia Kings 8 from ten, St Kitts and Nevis Patriots 7 from nine, Trinbago Knight Riders 6 from nine, Barbados Tridents 6 from seven. The top two are clear of the field, and the Falcons now have a result to carry into any playoff meeting with Guyana — the knowledge that the Warriors can be rushed, and that it is their pace bowlers, more than their spinners, who can be got at.

For Guyana, the thing to watch is how they respond to the version of themselves this match revealed. They are a superb side when they control the tempo. On this night, the Falcons took it off them twice — once with the bat in the last five overs, once with the ball in the first three of the chase — and Guyana had no answer to either.