BRIDGETOWN — Four overs, 14 runs, and four wickets turned the CPL 2026 final in Antigua and Barbuda Falcons’ favor.
The Falcons defeated Jamaica Kingsmen by eight wickets at Kensington Oval on September 20 to win their first Caribbean Premier League title, just three seasons after entering the competition.
Sufyan Moqim’s 4 for 14 dismantled Jamaica’s middle order, although Maaz Sadaqat’s historic 114 helped the Kingsmen reach 170 for 9. Sadaqat became the first player to score a century in a CPL final.
The Falcons chased 171 in 16.4 overs, finishing on 173 for 2 with 20 balls remaining—the highest successful run chase in CPL final history. Amir Jangoo made an unbeaten 57 and Hasan Nawaz remained not out on 47.
The title was also the first CPL final staged at Kensington Oval.
Maaz Sadaqat scored 114 from 58 deliveries — the first century in CPL cricket final history, arriving in a September already generating batting milestones at a historic rate. Abhishek Sharma had scored a 30-ball century for India against Afghanistan just days earlier, setting a new benchmark for fast hundreds in international cricket. Nine sixes. Eight fours from Sadaqat. He accounted for 67 percent of Jamaica’s 170 for 9, and his innings demanded the superlatives it received. What the Kingsmen could not build around him were partnerships. Three of their top six were dismissed for ducks. Saim Ayub’s 29 was the only other double-digit contribution from any recognized position. The innings was brilliant and structurally isolated, and Moqim had created the isolation before Sadaqat had finished constructing the brilliance.
The Pakistan wrist-spinner, who made his T20I debut for the national team in October 2023 and entered the tournament carrying 27 wickets at a T20I average of 14.74, found turn in the Bridgetown surface from the second over. Two wickets in quick succession pushed the Kingsmen to 22 for 4. The CPL 2026 cricket season had already produced one age-defying bowling record — 47-year-old Imran Tahir became the oldest player to take a T20 five-wicket haul in the tournament’s history — and Moqim’s four-wicket spell in the final added another landmark to what was becoming cricket’s most record-laden Caribbean T20 season. Sadaqat’s century was scored against a middle order that had already conceded its structural authority. According to the 2026 tournament guide published by Yahoo Sports, this was the first CPL edition to feature seven cricket franchises, with both Antigua and Jamaica among the league’s newest additions, meeting in a final neither had previously reached.
Moeen Ali, the England allrounder who captained the Falcons alongside the Pakistan spin duo of Moqim and Shadab Khan, had built the team’s cricket attack around subcontinental wrist-spin options on Caribbean surfaces — a combination that paid dividends throughout the group stage and playoffs.
The chase unfolded without urgency. Johnson Lewis gave Antigua 56 at the top of the order before departing in the 11th over. By then the target had contracted to something the remaining overs could absorb comfortably.
The cricket final produced a statistical paradox. The losing team contained the player-of-the-tournament batting performance. The winning team produced the defining bowling spell. Both records were broken on the same night at the same venue, and the combination still produced an eight-wicket win, because a total built around one batter — however brilliant — is one that championship-quality cricket dismantles.
Sadaqat’s CPL cricket final hundred arrived in the same weekend that Shafali Verma scored the first century in Asian Games cricket history — September 2026 carrying more T20 cricket batting records than any comparable month in the format’s two-decade history.
According to the Caribbean Premier League’s official press release records, this was the first CPL cricket final held in Barbados, and the Falcons became the first franchise in CPL history to win the championship on their debut final appearance.
The Falcons advance into the offseason as CPL cricket champions in their third year. For Moqim, the Player of the Match award was the postscript to four overs that had already told the story.
