CPL 2022: St Lucia Kings vs St Kitts & Nevis Patriots: Kings dominant over Patriots

St Kitts, September 12: Saint Lucia Kings kept their Caribbean Premier League (CPL 2022) hopes alive with a dominant victory against the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots on Monday (September 12).

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 Power Play.

However, much like their performance against the Guyana Amazon Warriors, the Kings faulted 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 Power Play losing three wickets for their 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 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 Power Play.

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.

Brief scores: Saint Lucia Kings: 161/9 (Du Plessis 60, Charles 41; Pretorius 3/37, Dananjaya 2/30) beat St Kitts & Nevis Patriots: 100 all out (Lewis 24, Bravo 20; Wiese 3/17, Forde 3/19) by 61 runs.