BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots chalked up their first win at home in the franchise history and did it in fine style by recording the largest margin of victory ever.
The home team beat the Jamaica Tallawahs by a record 119-run margin yesterday (Jul. 4) at the Warner Park Cricket Stadium.
Tallawahs’ captain Chris Gayle won the toss and invited the Patriots to bat; a move he later regretted as the Patriots batsmen finally came to the party fully prepared to dance and executed their best batting performance so far in the tournament.
They posted a commanding 199-5 from their 20 overs.
Openers Martin Guptill and Evin Lewis followed up their solid start in the previous game with a similar partnership, but this time at a quicker rate as they regularly found the boundary.
Lewis was the more aggressive of the two, which saw him taking 15 runs from an Andre Russel over.
After Guptil departed for 35, Lewis then opened up his shoulders and went on to tear the Tallawahs bowling apart as he brought up his 50 from 31 deliveries to loud cheers from the fair sized crowd at that time.
He then carried on in the same vein while batting with captain Marlon Samuels who was happy to just give him most of the strike.
When Samuels went for 19, the Patriots were 143-2 from 14.4 overs and Afridi joined Lewis as they were targeting 200. But shortly after Lewis departed through the run out route for 82 as replays shows his bat was on the line when the stumps were broken.
His dismissal then brought Carlos Brathwaite to the crease and he played the role of the innings finisher, hitting three sixes and two fours in his stand of 36 from 18 deliveries to push the Patriots to 199.
In their run chase, the Tallawahs top order was destroyed by Sheldon Cottrell as he first got the key wicket of Chris Gayle and quickly followed up with those of Chadwick Walton and Chris Lynn to leave the team teetering on 51-4.
The young fast bowler did his trademark salute each time he picked up those wickets.
He was ably supported by the other bowlers when his spell came to an end as Tabraiz Shamsi picked up 4 for 23 and Shahid Afridi collected two for 10.
Following the game, coach of the Tallawahs Junior Bennet indicated that his team did not bat to its ability and that they would address that flaw going into future games.
Bennet also stated that he was confident that the team would have been able to chase down the 200-run target.
“You have to get off to very good start and I don’t think we played smart today,” he emphasised.
Man of the Match Evin Lewis hailed his performance as great and indicated that the 82-run knock would boost his confidence for the rest of the tournament.
In the second game, the Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel won a thriller over the Guyana Amazon Warriors by 3 wickets with one ball to spare.
The Amazon Warriors won the toss and chose to bat but could have only mustered 117 runs from their 20 overs despite 50 from Lendl Simmons.
In reply, the Red Steel had a very hard task in chasing the small total despite seemingly cruising to victory after 15 overs. This situation was created by a devastating spell of spin bowling from Davendra Bishoo, who brought the Amazon Warriors back into the match and also saw him involved in an epic end to the game.
Needing two runs from the final two balls, Bishoo bowled a jaffer to Kevon Cooper who was convincingly beaten and had dragged his foot out of the crease and the stumps were broken by wicketkeeper Dinesh Ramdin.
The umpire requested assistance from the third umpire to make the decision and replays showed that Bishoo had overstepped the front crease by the smallest of margins possible and it was ruled a no ball.
Needing one from two balls, Cooper then smashed Bishoo into the boundary for a memorable victory.
Bishoo finished the game with four wickets for 11 runs and the Man of the Match Award went to Red Steel captain Dwayne Bravo for his four for 18.
