Guyana slip to 29 for 8, scrape 85, and still win the Global Super League final
The Warriors were bowled out for 85 at Providence and defended it, retaining the Global Super League title as San Francisco Unicorns fell six runs short.
Aug 2, 2026
Guyana Amazon Warriors were 29 for 8 in a Twenty20 final. They still ended the night as champions. The Warriors were bowled out for 85 at Providence in the Global Super League final on 1 August, defended it, and won by six runs when San Francisco Unicorns folded for 79 with nine balls to spare.
Imran Tahir won the toss and batted, which for the first hour looked like the only mistake that mattered. Anirudh Immanuel bowled his four overs for seven runs and three wickets. Peter Siddle took three for 18. Johnson Charles went for 2, Rahmanullah Gurbaz for 8, Mohammad Haris for 6, Shimron Hetmyer for 4. Mohammad Nabi, Rovman Powell and Gudakesh Motie made two runs each. Romario Shepherd was run out without scoring. Eight wickets had gone inside nine overs and the scoreboard read 29.
The last two wickets were worth 56
Matthew Forde came in at No. 10 and did the one thing nobody else had managed, which was hit the ball off the square. His 28 came off 23 balls with two fours and two sixes, and the ninth-wicket stand dragged Guyana from 29 to 70. Tahir then added 15 more for the last wicket before holing out for 11.
Through all of it Dwaine Pretorius simply stayed there. He finished 17 not out off 30 balls, a strike rate of 56 that would look absurd on any other night in this format and looked like good judgement on this one. Guyana were all out for 85 in 18.5 overs, and 85 in that mood is not the same number as 85 written down.
San Francisco found the same pitch
Pretorius had Tim Robinson caught behind with the first ball of the chase. Motie bowled Connor Esterhuizen in the second over, Hassan Khan picked out Hetmyer, and the Unicorns were 28 for 3 inside three overs of a target of 86.
Oliver Peake and Sanjay Krishnamurthi steadied it to 53, which with 10 overs left should have been enough of a platform. Then Nabi and Tahir went to work in tandem. Krishnamurthi fell at the end of the tenth over, Hammad Azam and Karima Gore were both bowled by Tahir off consecutive balls, and Peake was trapped lbw by Nabi for a top score of 31 off 28. Four wickets had gone for three runs. San Francisco were 56 for 7.
Fabian Allen and Siddle got the equation down to a coin flip, adding 14 for the ninth wicket before Pretorius bowled Allen at 72. Siddle was still there on 13 when Callum Stow was run out by Hetmyer, and the innings closed on 79 in 18.3 overs.
Two in a row for the Warriors
Pretorius took the player-of-the-match award for the 17 not out and figures of three for 24, an all-round return that in a normal final would barely register. Nabi was player of the series with 53 runs and 10 wickets, the most in the tournament. Guyana had topped the five-team table with three wins from four to go straight into the final, while San Francisco arrived through the qualifier, beating Desert Vipers by eight wickets on 31 July.
It is a second GSL title in a row for the Warriors, who beat Rangpur Riders in the 2025 final at the same ground. The oddity is what this edition looked like before Saturday. Guyana chased 206 against the Vipers for the highest successful pursuit in the competition’s history, with Shepherd reaching fifty in 17 balls. Seven days later the same tournament produced its two lowest totals in the same match, and the trophy went to the side that survived one of them.