Saint Lucia Kings kept their Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) hopes alive with a dominant victory against St Kitts & Nevis Patriots at the Darren Sammy Stadium in St Lucia Sunday night.
The Patriots won the toss and opted to field first and that appeared to have backfired when Johnson Charles and Faf Du Plessis put on a blistering opening partnership that saw them post 61 runs in the PowerPlay.
However, much like their performance against the Guyana Amazon Warriors, the Kings faltered badly in the back end of their innings losing nine wickets for 75 runs.
Despite the stuttering end to their innings, the 161-9 the Kings posted always looked tricky and the Patriots got off to a bad start in the PowerPlay losing three wickets for 48 runs.
They never recovered from that position as the Kings blew them away with an excellent performance in the field. Tim David led the way with a Hero CPL record-equalling five catches in the outfield.
The Kings needed a good performance in this must-win game and led by captain Faf Du Plessis’ 60 runs from 35 balls they set off very quickly.
Ably assisted by the in-form Johnson Charles the pair put on 86 for the first wicket but once Charles fell the Kings innings fell away. They regularly lost wickets in clusters and when Alzarri Joseph departed for a duck with the score on 124-7 it looked as if the Kings may not see out the overs.
However, late hitting from Matthew Forde ensured the Kings were able to post a par score of 161.
The Patriots' innings was in deep trouble very early on in reply. Matthew Forde ripped through the top three to leave the Patriots teetering at the end of the Powerplay.
From that point, the Patriots failed to build any meaningful partnership as their top order continued to struggle.
When Alzarri Joseph removed Darren Bravo for 20 to leave the Patriots on 81-6, that was the last of the recognised batters and the innings soon ended with the Patriots ending on 100 all out.
Saint Lucia Kings 161-9 (Du Plessis 60, Charles 41; Pretorius 3-37, Dananjaya 2-30) beat St Kitts & Nevis Patriots 100 (Lewis 24, Bravo 20; Wiese 3-17, Forde 3-19) by 61 runs.