Tarouba, Sep 4 Defending Champions Saint Lucia Kings won their fourth match in a row, moved to the top of the table and qualified for the playoffs of Caribbean Premier League (CPL) after a dominating win against Trinbago Knight Riders at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Trinidad and Tobago early on Thursday.
Saint Lucia Kings (SLK) won the toss and elected to bowl first. Left-arm spinner Khary Pierre started the proceedings with the first over wicket of TKR’s most prolific batter Colin Munro. The SLK bowling unit kept on picking crucial wickets at regular intervals and never allowed the opposition batters to settle down.
Left-arm wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsi was the pick of the bowlers’ for SLK with impressive figures of 3 wickets for 12 runs in four overs, including big wickets of Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell. Khary Pierre, Roston Chase and Delano Potgieter also took two wickets each. The bowling unit utilised the conditions perfectly and dismissed TKR for 109 runs in 18 overs.
TKR captain Nicholas Pooran top scored for them with a steady knock of 30 runs but didn’t find any support from the other end.
Chasing 110 to win, SLK opener Tim Seifert, who scored a brilliant hundred in the previous match, got the team to a good start with a quick-fire 36. Ackeem Auguste and Roston Chase chipped in with 28 and 27 runs respectively.
Tim David hit a six off Usman Tariq in the 12th over and took kings home with 53 balls left in the match.
After the win, SLK captain David Wiese said, "That was a great performance from the boys. We assessed the conditions really well. Nice to win the toss and that helps. Good team performance. Everyone is enjoying their cricket and just play with that freedom. You can really tense up chasing such a low total but they went out and played with a free mind and that's working for us."
Saint Lucia Kings will next face Barbados Royals in Bridgetown, Barbados on Sunday.
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