An­tigua & Bar­bu­da Fal­cons main­tained their per­fect home record with a six wick­et vic­to­ry over the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um in the Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL).

The win was an­chored by a de­struc­tive un­beat­en part­ner­ship of 76 be­tween Kusal Per­era and Shadab Khan, who res­cued the Fal­cons from a shaky start. Khan de­liv­ered a stand­out all round per­for­mance, smash­ing 52 off just 20 balls and re­turn­ing miser­ly fig­ures of 1 for 8 from his four overs to claim the Play­er of the Match award.

The Knight Rid­ers had threat­ened to si­lence the home crowd ear­ly, rac­ing to 73 for 1 in the Pow­er Play. Col­in Munro and Nicholas Pooran launched a fe­ro­cious as­sault, Munro tar­get­ing the leg side while Pooran un­leashed switch hits to dis­man­tle the Fal­cons’ at­tack. But the mo­men­tum shift­ed af­ter the in­tro­duc­tion of Khan and To­bag­on­ian Joshua James. James struck cru­cial blows, re­mov­ing Pooran and Kieron Pol­lard on his way to 2 for 23, while Khan’s con­trol stran­gled the scor­ing rate.

From a po­si­tion where 200 looked like­ly, the Knight Rid­ers fal­tered to 165 for 6. Aside from Munro and Pooran’s fire­works, the rest of the bat­ting line­up failed to ig­nite, leav­ing the Fal­cons with a man­age­able chase.

The re­ply be­gan cau­tious­ly, yield­ing just 33 runs in the Pow­er Play with the loss of Rah­keem Corn­wall. Amir Jan­goo and Moeen Ali threat­ened briefly be­fore falling, leav­ing the Fal­cons in need of in­spi­ra­tion. Per­era and Khan pro­vid­ed it in spec­tac­u­lar fash­ion. Their as­sault peaked in the 18th over when young pac­er Nathan Ed­ward con­ced­ed 27 runs, in­clud­ing two waist high no balls that forced Pol­lard to com­plete the over.

With the tar­get sud­den­ly with­in reach, Khan fin­ished the job in style, seal­ing vic­to­ry in three de­liv­er­ies. The re­sult gave the Fal­cons back to back wins and lift­ed them to the top of the ta­ble, while the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Knight Rid­ers slumped to con­sec­u­tive de­feats.

The Fal­cons’ home fortress re­mains in­tact, and Khan’s bril­liance has set the tone for their cam­paign as the CPL heats up.