BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots moved up to second position with eight points in the Hero CPL Tournament after defeating the St. Lucia Zouks by 25 runs in their penultimate at-home-game played last evening (Jul. 10) at the Warner Park Cricket Stadium.
Zouks won the toss and asked the Patriots to bat.
The pair of Martin Guptill and Evin Lewis opened the Patriots account while the fastest bowler in the tournament, Shannon Gabriel, took the new ball for the Zouks.
Gabriel’s pace proved too much for Lewis, especially when he bowled a bouncer that registered 154.5 kph (96 mph) that hit Lewis on the top of his helmet before flying to second slip.
The blow seemed to affect Lewis’ temperament and he was eventually out caught at slip off the same speedster.
Shane Dorwich was then given a surprised promotion to replace Lewis and repaid the faith vested in his ability by hitting five boundaries and two maximums on his way to 38 off 20 balls, which included an over where he scored 18 off of Kemar Roach.
When he fell playing a shot off Nathan Mccullum into the breeze on the eastern side of the ground, it sparked a trend that led to the downfall of many Patriots batsmen.
The Patriot went on to lose wickets at regular intervals despite most of the batsmen being able to occasionally find the boundary.
This led to some of the lower order providing late blows that propelled the Patriots to 170-8 off their allotted 20 overs.
The Zouks got off to a fast start in reply with Fletcher and Charles regularly finding the boundary and, at one stage, had the scoring rate up at 13.
When Charles was outsmarted by a Tanvir’s slower ball, the game started to turn in the Patriots favour. And while the prolific Kevin Pietersen seemed in ominous form, he too quickly returned to the stand after being caught at long off by crowd favourite Carlos ‘Ricky’ Brathwaite.
The Zoukes then lost Ross Taylor in short order and found themselves short on batsmen at 76-3.
Rain then stepped in and caused a 20-minute delay which saw the Zouks behind the Patriots by eight balls in the Duckworth Lewis method.
When the game restarted, the Zouks tried to press the Patriots with the aim of getting ahead of the Duckworth Lewis rate but lost two quick wickets, including Andre Fletcher who had all guns blazing.
After Fletcher's departure, the task was too much for the Zouks and the tail-enders collapsed leaving their team on 145-7 after 20 overs.
Following the game, Patriots captain Marlon Samuels lauded the team’s performance despite being without Sheldon Cottrell and Tabraiz Shamsi.
He hailed the fans who went out in their thousands to support the team and spoke of his desire to bring the CPL title to St. Kitts and Nevis.
