PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC-Afghanistan were adjudged winners of the Asia vs. the Caribbean Twenty/20 tournament after three teams won the same number of matches.
The win is expected to boost the confidence of the Afghanistan players ahead of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Twenty/20 tournament starting in Sri Lanka later this month.
Afghanistan edged host Trinidad and Tobago and Bangladesh on net run rate after all three teams finished the tournament on two wins each at the Queens Park Oval.
They posted a net run rate of 0.402 while Trinidad and Tobago and Bangladesh registered 0.105 and 0.33.
Barbados, the other team in the four-nation tournament, lost all three matches.
The net run rate was required to determine which team gets the US 50,000 dollar winner take all top prize after a cliffhanger encounter between Trinidad and Tobago and Bangladesh.
The Trinidadians snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in a sensational four wicket win over Bangladesh who scored 124 runs for nine wickets.
Trinidad and Tobago in reply ran into early trouble and were reeling on 12 for the loss of five wickets including two in the first over.
Jason Mohammed and Sherwin Ganga started the fight back with a sixth- wicket stand of 39.
Mohammed cracked a pair of cover-driven sixes, off Mahmudullah’s off-breaks before loosely edging Abul Hasan to the keeper to end his 27-ball knock.
But Sherwin Ganga found an ally in Yannick Ottley who scored an unbeaten half century and they steered the host to victory with a game-winning partnership of 78.
Ottley struck two sixes off Al Hasan and Mahmudullah and with Ganga reduced the target to 19 runs from the remaining two overs.
The penultimate over produced 14 runs including a reverse sweep by Ganga for a boundary and a six overhead by Ottey who top scored with 52 from 27 balls with a four and four sixes.
Needing five runs in the final over, Ganga got three runs from Al Hasan’s first two balls before Ottley slog-swept the third for his fourth six, which brought up his fifty as well as the team’s victory.
