After chasing a record 242 Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) on Tuesday night, the St. Kitts & Nevis Patriots were returned to Earth by Barbados Tridents on Wednesday.
While Jamaica Tallawah was unable to defend 241/4 here 24 hours earlier, 186/2 were enough for the Tridents to trigger the 18 winners.
After the heroics of the previous day, the Patriots would have been confident to win another victory, but were immediately put to flight by Trident’s Skipper Jason Holder. He removed Devon Thomas with the first ball he bowled-a beauty just torn away enough to find the outer edge-then hooked another of last night’s lead characters, Evin Lewis, over this hook to cover up.
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Laurie Evans made a classy 64 out of 41 with limits around the floor, but no one else was able to stay with him and score with the speed required.
Jason Mohammed was strangled by Roshon Primus for 12 before the Tridents leg spinners made a decisive move with four wickets in three overs before the rain stopped the victory storm. The Nepalese leg spinner Sandeep Lamichhane bagged two wickets in his third. The first Shamarh Brooks was cleverly caught by Ashley Nurse, who ran out of cover for 13 years before Evans’s key-wicket by Josh Lalor was hit with a short, fine leg from an edgy strike.
A pair of Googlies brought two more crucial breakthroughs into the next two overs, with Fabian Allen rolling into Lamichhane for a single run with Hayden Walsh Jr and Carlos Brathwaite lbw to challenge the Patriots at 107/7 and bring 80 runs Only 31 balls left, as a sudden downpour sent the players to cover.
The rain, which fell violently, stopped the Tridents for 45 minutes. When the game resumed, Walsh Jr. promptly threw Usama Mir a bowling ball that did not approach an attempted slog and lost its stump.
Rayad Emrit was looking for his second six in the night, but instead got Jason Holder from a distance from Lalor.
Despite the hopelessness of the situation, Dominic Drakes had some fun when he hit Holder in the 18th with three giant sixes and in an unbroken game of 49 against Alzarri Joseph knocked out a total of 34 not 13 balls to finish the night Patriots second top scorer and make the final defeat much closer than it could have been. There may not have been as many records as the day before, but here was one: Drakes ’34. Not out is the highest T20 score ever at number 11.
The Tridents were indebted to Duminy for an explosive late injection to gain a competitive record after being tied down for much of their innings.
Alex Hales had a lively start in the first three innings with four fours offside, but after he was fired when he tried to bring Emrit to the third man, the hit rate dropped dramatically.
On a floor where a record of 37 six had been hit the previous night, the Tridents did not clear the ropes until Johnson Charles took a long ball from his bale over the side of Brathwaite’s leg.
Charles had started slowly, but he began to find his reach and struck Hero Maximums ahead of Usama Mir to reach his half century in 41 balls. However, he fell two balls later and sought out Brooks – who also dropped a few simple catches – in the deep midline after a third-sixth of the innings.
Goalkeeper batsman Leniko Boucher made his first half-century hero CPL in an inning of increasing authority. After shooting 22 balls in his first 22 runs, he added 40 of the next 25 balls to land unbeaten on 62 with four fours and three sixs.
However, it was Duminy who was most responsible for lifting the Tridents to victory by beating an unbeaten 43 out of 18 and scoring the ball noticeably cleaner than his team-mates. He sent four balls with 73 runs from the last six overs over the ropes when the South African veteran was at the crease.
