Bangladesh ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan continued his good work in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), helping his side to win the last game of the group phase before the play-off matches. After coming to open the bowling, Shakib claimed two crucial wickets for just 24 runs in four overs as his side Barbados Tridents clinched a comfortable seven-wicket victory over Trinbago Knight Riders at Port of Spain on Wednesday, according to CPL website.

Shakib took the wicket of opener Jimmy Nisham in the first over and then came back with fire in his last spell to claim the prized scalp of Lendl Simmons who scored highest 60 for Trinbago. Simmons’s dismissal in 15th over effectively ruined Trinbago’s any chance of making a hefty total as they were restricted to 134-8 in 20 overs.

In his 45 ball-60 that was studded by three fours and fours sixes, Simmons kept the run flowing and it looked Trinbago was on course of big total until Shakib Al Hasan rattled his stump with a straight delivery. Shakib however didn’t fare well in batting as he was out for just 13. But Johnson Charles’s 47 ball-55 runs, including five fours and two sixes helped the side cruise to the victory with 135-3 in 19.4 overs. Alex Hales was the other notable scorer with 33. After his union with the Barbados, Shakib played three matches and took six

wickets, which all came in the crucial moment of the game. Even though he was not at his best in batting, apart from the second match in which he scored 25 ball-33 runs, his bowling kept Barbados on course. Barbados lost one match in three in which Shakib was the part of the team. However the team had already confirmed their play-off berth.

The result created yet anoth­er upheaval on the six-team round-robin table as the Tri­dents leapfrogged TKR into joint second place with the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots, both teams on 10 points. With the loss, their fourth in the last five matches, the now stut­ter­ing TKR (9 pts) dropped to fourth place and must now win their last game against un­beat­en lead­ers Guyana Ama­zon Warriors (16 pts) on Friday if they want to clinch sec­ond spot to earn them­selves two chances of mak­ing the fi­nal via the elimina­tor play­off matches.

However, judg­ing from Wednes­day's re­sult, skipper Kieron Pol­lard's team have a lot to do to steady the TKR ship ahead of that match, which they must now win if are to re­ju­ve­nate their run for a hat-trick of CPL titles.