That brings us to the end of round 4, and despite the fact we didn't get as many results as we'd like, we got some notable performances. The nature of the pitches mean they all came with the bat. Rizwan's hundred means he pushes his case for the Test seri

[Torrent Disney]

Picture this: You're driving to the airport from your home in St. Kitts with two plane tickets in your inbox. One ticket will take you through Miami, then on to Los Angeles for a USA national team training camp and potentially a central contract. The other ticket will take you through Miami, then on to Toronto for the Global T20 Canada and a gateway to franchise T20 cricket. What would you do?

It was a dilemma faced by 27-year-old Hayden Walsh Jr. one morning in late July. Three months later, he is preparing to play for Barbados Tridents in the CPL final as the tournament's leading wicket-taker. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which path he wound up taking.

"Trust me, it never occurred to me before that I would be in this position," Walsh Jr. told ESPNcricinfo on Friday from Trinidad ahead of the CPL final against undefeated Guyana Amazon Warriors. "I never would have told you I would be the leading wicket-taker this year. I thought I would have a good year in CPL, but not this great. It was just about trying to get into the starting XI and trying to cement a place but I did more than that."

But if not for a twist of fate, his incredible tournament for the Tridents might never have happened. By the time he got to the airport and checked in on that July morning in Basseterre, he still wasn't sure which way he would go.

"I left St. Kitts with two seats on the plane," Walsh Jr. said. "When I got to Miami, I had to decide whether I was going to go to the L.A. gate or the Toronto gate."

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When Hayden Walsh Jr. was first drafted into the USA team in November 2018 for WCL Division Three, everything was a breath of fresh air. No longer was he buried in the Barbados franchise set-up behind two West Indies spinners in Jomel Warrican and Ashley Nurse.

"Barbados has nine players on the West Indies team and I would literally play three out of ten games a year," he told ESPNcricinfo in March while on tour in Dubai with USA to play their maiden T20Is against UAE. Since making himself available for USA, he was getting opportunities not just to bowl but to bat higher up in the middle-order as well and was making the most of those opportunities to became a very dependable player for USA on their march to ODI status at WCL Division Two in Namibia this past April.

In February, he had asked to be released from his Barbados first-class contract. As far as he was concerned, he had pushed his stack of chips to the center of the table and was going all-in with USA. "I'm looking forward to a USA contract once we get ODI status," Walsh Jr. said. "I'm actually looking forward to a USA contract at the end of Division Two, once we qualify."