Gerhard Erasmus and Dominic Sabir rode their luck on their way to guiding Pembroke Panthers to their first Bermuda Smash Invitational title.

Erasmus scored 104 and Sabir 79 not out to beat Sandys Spartan by 58 runs in the final on Saturday.

Player of the match Erasmus was dropped on 11 by Akeem Jordan in Isaiah O’Brien’s second over, with that missed chance proving costly for Spartans as the Namibian captain went to add another 93 runs.

Sabir offered a chance on 19 off the bowling of Sa-Qui Robinson, but he was put down in the deep by Alex Brown.

The Panthers captain’s second-wicket stand of 143 with Erasmus was largely responsible for their team’s total of 217 for two in 20 overs after they lost the toss and were put in to bat at North Field, National Sports Centre.

While Chad Bowes scored 64 and Delray Rawlins contributed a 24-ball 39 in reply, the Panthers bowlers tightened the noose at the right moment, with Jermal Proctor picking up three for 28, Fabien Allen two for 22 and Jonathan Van Lange finished with two for 30, to restrict Jeff Richardson’s side to 159 for seven.

Erasmus was delighted to have used the opportunity given to him to take his side to what turned out to be a winning score.

“I got a chance early from the opposition dropping me and then tried to use it,” Erasmus told The Royal Gazette.

“If they give you an opportunity, you have to take it and try to knuckle down a bit more, take a few less risks on a tough pitch.

“Credit must go to the way captain Dominic Sabir batted as well. He held things together in the middle order for us.

“The locals chipped in with their skill sets with bat and ball. That put together a nice and balanced team for us to win the cup.”

Erasmus, who was part of the Spartans team that lost in the final last year, felt that injuries to key players put his former side at a disadvantage.

“The difference between the two teams was the quality in bowling and I think we had the upper hand in that,” he said.

“We were probably quite lucky that they had a few bowling injuries and their best player, Kamau Leverock, going down to a niggle.

“One of their pros had a shoulder injury so their bowling attack was on its last limbs. We used that to our advantage by putting them under pressure with big partnerships.

“It was a bittersweet moment because I have many friends on the other team from last year and from a couple of years ago in my career. Whoever won, it would have been a nice moment for me because one of my teams would have won.”

One thing that kept lingering in coach Cal Waldron’s mind throughout the week was that no team had ever gone undefeated in the tournament.

“The previous teams that went undefeated didn’t win, so we broke the jinx that once you go undefeated you can’t win,” the winning coach said.

“We performed at certain times throughout the matches. We posted a good total in the final, so we pretty much did the first half great and in the second half, we came out and performed admirably with the ball and kept on going.”

Richardson lamented the dropped catches and injuries picked up by some of his key players.

“It’s simple, you drop catches, you lose matches,” he said.

“We dropped Erasmus very early in his innings and he went to score a hundred. We dropped Dominic early in his innings and he scored 79.

“If we had taken our catches, we could have bowled them out for 100. It’s that simple, if we executed and took our catches, we would have been in the match.”

“I think that 200 was a bit too much for us to go after. We had a few injuries on our team overnight. Our captain couldn’t bowl at pace and our fast bowler, Akeem Jordan, couldn’t bowl from his run-up.”