BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE Caribbean Premier League Party returned to Warner Park last evening (Sept. 15), when the St. Kitts-Nevis Patriots ended their slump in form to record a six-wicket victory over the St. Lucia Zouks.
Patriots’ Akeem Jordan and Evan Lewis were the stars of the show.
Batting first, the Zouks were put to the sword and were quickly restricted to 138 for 9 of their allotted 20 overs.
Akeem Jordan was the pick of the bowlers bagging 4 for 33, including the scalps of Andre Fletcher and Rhakeem Cornwall.
In reply, Evan Lewis blasted 65 from 30 balls to lead the Patriots to their second victory of the season.
Scores: Zouks 138/9 off 20 overs and Patriots 143/4 off 14.5 overs.
Patriots captain, Carlos Braithwaite acknowledged that his team played as a unit, which was somewhat different in the previous night’s game against the Warriors when his bowler came to the party but his batsmen failed.
“…once again the bowling came up trumps and then it was a very professional batting performance right away down from the openers to the finish.”
The team had mixed fortunes during their home leg of the series, setting a record chase for the CPL in 242 before their batting collapsed in the next two games, which saw them going down for smaller totals.
“We spoke about not taking our chances, and tonight we saw two excellent catches from Devon Thomas behind the stumps. We spoke about getting early wickets and tonight Akeem Jordan gave us that start. So it was everything that we asked for after yesterday’s game and to see what the guys responded with. And I hope that the fans can take that away heading into the bank holiday tomorrow and come back on Tuesday.”
Zouks captain, Darren Sammy commended the Patriots for their performance but laid the defeat to the fact that his unit did not bat well under friendly conditions.
“We let Jordan run through our top order. And in the power play when you lose three wickets you give yourself a 30 percent chance of winning the game. I thought the St. Kitts bowled well and we did not assess the conditions well enough.”
The Patriots will wrap up their final home game on tomorrow (Sept.17) against the undefeated Trinibago Knight Riders at Warner Park.
