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Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Noor spins Kings to victory

by

Sport Desk
139 days ago
20240905
Noor Ahmad of St Lucia Kings bowls against Antigua & Barbuda Falcons during the Men's 2024 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League match at Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Stadium in Antigua nd Barbuda on Tuesday. Kings won by seven wickets.

Noor Ahmad of St Lucia Kings bowls against Antigua & Barbuda Falcons during the Men's 2024 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League match at Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Stadium in Antigua nd Barbuda on Tuesday. Kings won by seven wickets.

Courtesy CPL T20

Saint Lu­cia Kings con­tin­ued their im­pres­sive start to the Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) with a dom­i­nant sev­en-wick­et vic­to­ry over An­tigua & Bar­bu­da Fal­cons in An­tigua on Tues­day night.

Chas­ing 143 at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um in North Sound, cap­tain Faf du Plessis got the Kings off to a fli­er be­fore they romped to the tar­get with 18 balls to spare. It was a far less event­ful chase for Kings than their re­mark­able sea­son open­ing win over St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots.

But it was more heartache for the Fal­cons, who suf­fered a fourth straight de­feat in their de­but sea­son. The home side were un­able to cap­i­talise on a promis­ing start from new open­ing part­ners Fakhar Za­man and Justin Greaves as their in­nings fell away af­ter the Pow­er­Play.

Left-arm spin­ner Noor Ah­mad starred with 3/18 to re­strict Fal­cons to a mod­est 142/7 - the low­est to­tal in the CPL this sea­son. As­sis­tant coach Curt­ly Am­brose pro­vid­ed a pas­sion­ate ral­ly­ing cry for his team, but the Fal­cons at­tack strug­gled against the Kings' fire­pow­er as open­er John­son Charles an­chored the in­nings with an un­beat­en 47 off 46 balls.

A des­per­ate Fal­cons had been sent in to bat in windy con­di­tions. Greaves, in his sea­son de­but, tried to pro­vide a ton­ic and smashed a sec­ond ball bound­ary while Za­man soon found his rhythm with a stun­ning straight six off seam­er Matthew Forde.

But their blos­som­ing 35-run part­ner­ship was bro­ken when Za­man was well caught by a run­ning Khary Pierre, who short­ly af­ter­wards clean bowled Kofi James.

Pierre con­tin­ued to be part of the ac­tion when he caught a ski­er from Greaves, who fell on 36 af­ter he game­ly tried to hit in­to the breeze.

The Fal­cons were shack­led by dis­ci­plined bowl­ing in the mid­dle overs, un­able to hit bound­aries as their in­nings flamed out.

Du Plessis made bat­ting look easy and whacked quick Shamar Springer for three bound­aries and a six in the sec­ond over. He smashed 28 in his first 11 de­liv­er­ies be­fore falling in the first over from spin­ner Imad Wasim.

The wick­et of du Plessis and a brief rain de­lay at North Sound did not stop Kings' mo­men­tum as Charles and Bhanu­ka Ra­japak­sa blud­geoned mon­strous six­es. Cap­tain Chris Green took it up­on him­self to re­vive the Fal­cons with the wick­et of Ra­japak­sa in the eighth over.

But in Green's next over when he dropped a re­turn chance to re­prieve Ac­k­eem Au­guste on the last ball be­fore drinks. A ram­pant Tim Seifert fin­ished off the match in style with a six as Kings made an ear­ly sea­son state­ment.

SUM­MARISED SCORES

AN­TIGUA AND BAR­BU­DA FAL­CONS (20 overs) 142/7 (Justin Greaves 36, Imad Wasim 29, Fakhar Za­man 21, Jew­el An­drew 15; Noor Ah­mad 3-18, Ros­ton Chase 1-11, David Wiese 1-20, Khary Pierre 1-26, Alzarri Joseph 1-33) vs ST LU­CIA KINGS (17 overs) 144/3 (John­son Charles 47 not out, Faf du Plessis 28, Ac­k­eem Au­guste 27, Tim Seifert 26 not out; Imad Wasim 1-21, Chris Green 1-24, Fabi­an Allen 1-34). Kings won by 7 wick­ets.

(CPL)


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