St Lucia Zouks 172 for 6 (Fletcher 46, Nabi 35*) beat St Kitts and Nevis Patriots 162 for 8 (Ramdin 46, Kuggeleijn 4-33, Chase 3-12) by 10 runs
Andre Fletcher and Mark Deyal set St Lucia Zouks on track for a commanding score with their 56-run partnership off 30 balls. Mohammad Nabi provided the late thrust to take the Zouks to 172 for 6. St Kitts and Nevis Patriots could rarely extend their good periods to put real pressure on the Zouks, who claimed early wickets and kept the Patriots innings on a leash.
The ten-run loss is the Patriots’ third in the tournament, while the Zouks have claimed their second win in three matches. The Patriots showed a little fight – seamer Rayad Emrit took a wicket and conceded only 14 from his four overs, before Denesh Ramdin hit 46 off 35 to provide some substance to the innings. But the Patriots lost wickets too frequently to make a serious charge at the target. The offspin of Roston Chase made dents to the start of the Patriots innings, and then Scott Kuggeleijn‘s medium pace decked them in the middle and the end.
Chase keeps it tight
Chase might immediately strike you as a player that suits the longer formats better, but he is proving his all-round utility to the Zouks in this tournament. He hit a fifty in their first game, then took two middle-order wickets in the rain-hit win against the Barbados Tridents on Thursday. On Saturday, he only managed 4 with the bat but was outstanding with the ball, taking a wicket in the powerplay before claiming two others, mostly relying on drift and changes of pace. He gave away only 12 runs in his four overs, and did not concede a boundary. The Patriots were scoring at ten an over when he began his spell, and only 7.45 an over when he completed it, bowling unchanged right through.
Nabi hustles hard
Chase’s bowling performance though, was still not as important to the Zouks’ victory as the all-round proficiency that Nabi brought. The Zouks were 140 for 6 at the end of the 18th over, and seemed headed only for a score of about 160. But Nabi crashed two sixes off Sohail Tanvir over deep midwicket and then took 16 runs off Sheldon Cottrell’s final over. The Zouks reaped 32 off the last two overs thanks to Nabi, who faced all but one of the deliveries in those overs.
With the ball, he took the vital wicket of Chris Lynn in the third over, thanks to a stunning one-handed catch by Najibullah Zadran at square leg. Nabi would finish with figures of 1 for 17 from his four overs.
Ramdin gets busy
On another day, Ramdin’s innings could have been the centrepiece of a successful chase. He ran hard through the middle overs, and hit sixes off Obed McCoy and Kuggeleijn to shake a nosediving run rate into life. He never got a partner that stuck with him for long enough; a 25-run stand with Kieran Powell was the biggest partnership he was involved in.
Kuggeleijn’s late burst
Although most of the damage to the Patriots innings had been done at the top of the order, Kuggeleijn did nevertheless ensure there would be no late resurgence. He took three wickets off four balls, dismissing Ramdin and Tanvir towards the end of his third over before having Emrit hole out off the first ball of his fourth. He finished with the game’s best figures of 4 for 33.