Nine Down, Two Run-Outs Without Facing a Ball, and Chinelle Henry Still Found a Way — Jamaica Win on the Last Delivery

Jamaica Empress Women needed eight runs from three balls with one wicket left, and the two batters ahead of the last pair had both been run out for nought without facing a delivery. That is the sentence, and it undersells the match.

They had been 88 for 1 in the twelfth over of a revised chase of 132. Meg Lanning had made 31 from 21. Rashada Williams had made 31 from 28. Nothing about the position suggested anything other than a straightforward win — and then Guyana Amazon Warriors Women took eight wickets for 36 runs in seven overs, including two run-outs in three deliveries, and a chase that had been academic became a scramble.

Chinelle Henry, who had already taken a wicket, batted through it. Forty-one not out from 21 balls with three fours and four sixes, arriving at 94 for 4 and still there at the finish. Jamaica won by one wicket with no balls remaining, in the second match of the tournament, at Kensington Oval.

Guyana's innings began badly enough to have ended the match early. Rosemary Mair bowled Tazmin Brits in the third over; Chinelle Henry had Eboni Brathwaite caught in the fifth; the powerplay closed at 19 for 2, and the Amazon Warriors' overseas opener and their No. 3 had made four runs between them.

What rescued it was the third-wicket partnership, and it was rescued in two entirely different registers. Realeanna Grimmond took 46 balls over 45, which on this surface was the correct rate for someone holding an end. Shemaine Campbelle came in and hit seven fours and two sixes for 56 from 33 — fifty from 28 deliveries — and the stand was worth 97 in a shade over ten overs. Guyana went from 7 for 2 in the fifth to 104 for 3 in the fifteenth.

Then Stafanie Taylor got Campbelle caught by Henry, and Guyana lost four wickets for 34 in the last five overs. Nadine de Klerk was run out by the keeper Rashada Williams. Erin Burns was caught off Taylor. Shabnim Ismail was caught off Nonkululeko Mlaba, who finished with 4-0-15-2 — the most economical spell of the innings on either side. Chloe Tryon was left unbeaten on 21 from 16 with the strike she could not get.

One hundred and thirty-eight was thirty short of where 104 for 3 in the fifteenth should have led. It very nearly did not matter.

Jamaica's start was the best batting of the match. Meg Lanning hit five fours in 21 balls and Rashada Williams a six in hers; the opening stand was 48 inside five overs and the powerplay closed at 54 for 1. Chloe Tryon had Lanning caught by Sheneta Grimmond in the fifth, and Williams and Djenaba Joseph then added 40 more without alarm. Eighty-eight for one in the twelfth, chasing 139, on a ground where the boundaries were reachable.

Erin Burns changed it. Two overs, three runs, two wickets — Williams caught by Ismail at 88, Joseph caught by Brits at 94 — and in between, Stafanie Taylor was run out by Tryon and Sheneta Grimmond for 1. Eighty-eight for one had become 94 for 4 inside two overs. Shabnim Ismail had Abigail Bryce caught at 98 for 5 in the sixteenth, and then the rain came, with Jamaica 102 for 5 after 16.2 overs.

They returned needing 30 from 16 balls, target revised to 132 from nineteen overs. Nadine de Klerk had Aaliyah Alleyne caught by Tryon at 104. Ismail had Zaida James caught and bowled at 115. And then, in the space of three deliveries at the start of the nineteenth over, Rosemary Mair and Syeda Aroob Shah were both run out for nought having faced nothing at all — Brits to Tryon for the first, de Klerk to Tryon for the second. Chloe Tryon was involved in all three run-outs in the innings.

One hundred and twenty-four for nine. Eight needed. Three balls. Nonkululeko Mlaba, a No. 11 who would finish on 0 not out from 0 balls, at the non-striker's end.

Chinelle Henry hit twelve runs off them. Four sixes in a 21-ball innings, three fours, 41 not out, and a match that Jamaica should have won at a canter finished on the final delivery with one wicket standing.

The pitch was not the story, but the field settings and the over allocations were. Kensington Oval gave a fair batting surface — Campbelle hit two sixes and Henry four, and both sides' run rates sat around seven — and yet the two most economical spells in the match were four overs of left-arm spin from Mlaba (15 runs) and two overs from Erin Burns that cost three runs and took two wickets.

Burns' figures are the ones to argue about. Two overs, three runs, two wickets, an economy of 1.50, in an innings where Guyana's other six bowlers went for 132 in seventeen overs. She was not brought back. Shamilia Connell's two overs cost 22, Tryon's four cost 39, and Guyana ended up defending a total of 138 with their most effective bowler having sent down two of the nineteen overs available.

They lost by one wicket on the last ball. It is a hard way to learn an obvious lesson, and it is the first match of the Amazon Warriors' campaign.

This match didn't have a CricIntel preview — we'll have full analysis for both sides' next fixtures. What is worth stating for the record, since this was Jamaica Empress Women's and Guyana Amazon Warriors Women's first outing of WCPL 2026, is that Guyana's overseas core — Tazmin Brits, Chloe Tryon, Shabnim Ismail, Nadine de Klerk — is on paper the strongest group of imports in the competition, and it is the reason we would have made them favourites here. On the evidence of Sunday that reading needs qualifying: Brits made 1, and the three all-rounders took four wickets between them but conceded 83 runs from ten overs.

The West Indian names carried both sides. Campbelle's 56 was the highest score of the match; Henry's 41 not out won it; Stafanie Taylor's 2 for 24 and Rashada Williams' 31 framed it. That is the correct thing for a Caribbean tournament and not the thing our preseason read expected.

Jamaica Empress Women open their campaign with two points and a win that should have been comfortable and instead cost them eight wickets. Meg Lanning's 31 from 21 was the most fluent batting of the day and lasted five overs; Stafanie Taylor's captaincy — four overs of her own off-spin for 24 and two wickets, and using six bowlers in twenty overs — was well judged. The concern is a middle order that went 88 for 1 to 124 for 9 with three run-outs in it.

Guyana Amazon Warriors Women lose a match they had won twice over — once at 7 for 2 when Campbelle and Grimmond rebuilt, and again at 124 for 9 when Jamaica needed eight from three. They will look at the last five overs of their own innings, where they lost four wickets for 34, and at Erin Burns' two overs, and both will sting.

The performance to carry is Chinelle Henry's, and it deserves the fuller description. She bowled four overs for 28 and took a wicket. She caught Campbelle off Taylor to end the innings' one big partnership. Then she walked in at 94 for 4 in a rain-shortened chase, watched five partners get out — two of them without facing a ball — and hit four sixes in twenty-one deliveries to win it on the final one. That is an all-round match, in the oldest and best sense of the phrase.