Romario Shepherd's Toronto Nationals reach 2024 Global T20 Canada final

Riding on an all-round performance from Romario Shepherd, Toronto Nationals registered a comfortable five-wicket victory against Brampton Wolves in Qualifier 2 on Saturday to progress to Sunday’s summit clash of the fourth edition of the Global T20 Canada. Toronto will take on defending champions Montreal Tigers in the title clash.

Asked to bat first on a difficult wicket, the Wolves rode an unbeaten half-century by Nick Hobson to post a challenging total of 141/8 in their 20 overs. The Australian scored 51 runs off 34 deliveries with five boundaries and two sixes studding his defiant innings.

In reply, openers Unmukt Chand and Colin Munro put together an opening partnership of 57 runs off 33 deliveries to lay the foundation of Toronto’s victory.

The Wolves were off to a slow start with skipper David Warner (13) and fellow opener Kobe Herft (1) adopting a cautious approach. But they lost their first wicket quite early when Herft was sent back by former Australia pacer Jason Behrendorff in the third over. 

The biggest blow came in the next over when Warner – who was trying to force the pace - was trapped leg before while trying to play a Romario Shepherd delivery on to the onside. Jack Jarvis (20) and Beau Webster (8) tried to bring the innings back on track before the latter mistimed a slower ball from Canada pacer Jatinderpal Matharu only to see Rassie van der Dussen pull off an excellent fielding effort in the deep to latch on to a massive skier.

Matharu struck again in his next over, this time sending Jarvis back to the dugout to leave the Wolves struggling at 57/4 in the 10th over. However, Hobson led the way as the Brampton batters staged a strong recovery despite losing regular wickets along the way.

Shepherd was the most successful among the Toronto bowlers with figures of 4/32. Matharu picked up two wickets.

The Toronto chase was off to a flying start with openers Unmukt Chand (19) and skipper Colin Munro (36) scoring at a healthy rate before the former misjudged a delivery by Brampton pacer Andrew Tye.

Brampton bowlers picked up regular wickets from there on, but despite that Toronto batters continued to score at a consistent rate.

Mohammad Nawaz (24 not out) and van der Dussen (14) brought Toronto within sight of the target before the latter tried to pull an incoming delivery from Beau Webster only to offer an inside edge on to the stumps.

However, Nawaz continued to rally the lower order as Toronto crossed the line quite comfortably with 10 balls still to spare. Shepherd (10 not out) brought up the winning runs in style, smashing Akhil Kumar for consecutive boundaries.