St Lucia Zouks (150-3) beat St Kitts and Nevis Patriots (149-6) by seven wickets with 26 balls to spare
Wednesday, 24th June 2015 – Gros Islet, St Lucia - After the disappointment of rain preventing a result in their first match the St Lucia Zouks put in a fine performance to defeat the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the Hero Caribbean Premier League at the Beausejour Cricket Ground. A superb bowling display by the St Lucia fast bowlers and a powerful batting effort by their openers meant they chased down the target of 150 with more than 4 overs to spare. Marlon Samuel’s batting was the lone bright spark for the Patriots who will be bitterly disappointed to start out with a defeat in their first ever game.
An excellent Powerplay from the St Lucia Zouks pacemen saw them restrict the Patriots to 35-4 off the first six overs. Both Shannon Gabriel and Fidel Edwards bowled with real pace and aggression causing the visiting batsmen trouble on another Beausejour pitch that offered carry and bounce.
Edwards got the first breakthrough when he bowled Evin Lewis with a full ball that the batsman dragged on to his stumps. Next to go was Martin Guptill, fresh from a flight from England where he has been representing New Zealand. The Kiwi opener was brilliantly caught low down by Kemar Roach at mid-wicket. When Orlando Peters and Shane Dowrich fell to successive balls it left the Patriots top order in absolute shatters.
The first moment that the Patriots could cheer came in the sixth over when Roach was taken for 13 runs including consecutive boundaries from Samuels. From the very start of his innings the Patriots captain looked a class apart, although he was lucky not to be out caught off Kyle Mayers when he hit the ball high into the strong Gros Islet wind. Darren Sammy dove at full length but the ball just evaded his fingertips. It would have been a stunning grab if it had been taken.
While Samuels managed to find boundaries, at the other end Devon Thomas hung around but could not match his skipper’s scoring rate, at least until the 13th over when he finally cut loose hitting two sixes and a four to get his strike rate up to a run a ball. He could not kick on from there, caught in the deep trying to hit Sammy for another Hero maximum.
While Samuels continued to play a lone hand there would have been hopes of a strong finish from the explosive Pakistani all-rounder, Shahid Afridi. Unfortunately for the Patriots the reintroduction of Gabriel for his final over saw him dismiss Afridi for just one, trapping him LBW with a ball that swung into his pads.
Samuels was accompanied for the final stages of the innings by Sohail Tanvir who finished on 26 not out off 21 balls. It was a decent supporting act but the star turn was Samuels.
The Patriots always looked to have too few runs and the Zouks opening pair of Andre Fletcher and Johnson Charles made light work of this chase. For the second match in succession Fletcher made a telling contribution as an opening stand of 81 put victory beyond doubt very quickly. When the breakthrough came it was the young Canadian bowler Nikhil Dutta making his T20 debut. Fletcher attempted a reverse sweep that was gloved to the keeper.
Dutta was unlucky not to claim his first scalp in his previous over when a very simple chance to dismiss Charles was dropped by Sheldon Cottrell. The big fast bowler made amends for his clumsy drop when he dove forward to take a good catch to dismiss Kyle Mayers.
Kevin Pietersen arrived at the crease and was immediately in boundary hitting form, sweeping Tabraiz Shamsi for four to get off the mark before smashing Afridi for six two balls later.
Pietersen fell to the bowling of Dutta, bowled by a ball that turned between bat and pad. While the wickets could have slowed down the progress of the home side a brilliant unbeaten 69 off 44 balls from Charles kept things moving along with Ross Taylor keeping him company.
For the Patriots, they will hope that the games that take place at their home ground next week will see a stronger performance. The Zouks will be hoping to continue these strong displays in their remaining home matches against Guyana Amazon Warriors and Jamaica Tallawahs.
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