GROS ISLET – John­son Charles’s 28th Twen­ty20 fifty helped St Lu­cia Kings break their los­ing skid in the men’s Caribbean Pre­mier League, last year’s los­ing fi­nal­ists edg­ing the pre­vi­ous­ly un­beat­en Ja­maica Tallawahs by two wick­ets in St Lu­cia, late Wednes­day night.

In pur­suit of 165 at the Daren Sam­my Crick­et Ground, Kings over­hauled their tar­get with a ball to spare, in a fin­ish made un­nec­es­sar­i­ly anx­ious by nervy bat­ting at the back end.

Charles top-scored with 62 from 39 de­liv­er­ies at the top of the or­der, pro­vid­ing the foun­da­tion for the run chase which was then sup­ple­ment­ed by knocks of 22 from Roshon Primus and 20 apiece from David Wiese and Tim David.

Kings faced a re­quired run rate of 9-1/2 over the last five overs but nev­er re­al­ly found the ac­cel­er­a­tion, and were forced to scrap to get the nine runs need­ed from the last over.

All-rounder Ray­mon Reifer had ear­li­er al­so struck 62 to guide Tallawahs to 163 for eight off their 20 overs.

The left-han­der, bat­ting at num­ber five, ar­rived at the crease with his side on 47 for three at the end of the sixth over and count­ed four fours and four six­es in a 41-ball knock.

Sent in, Bran­don King (19) and Ken­nar Lewis (19) put on 38 for the first wick­et but it was Reifer who re­al­ly made the dif­fer­ence as one of on­ly two bats­men to pass 20, Imad Wasim (20) the oth­er.

First, Reifer post­ed 59 for the fifth wick­et with Imad be­fore adding a fur­ther 30 for the sixth wick­et with Fabi­an Allen (7).

New Zealan­der Scott Kuggelei­jn led the at­tack with three for 44 while fel­low seam­er David Wiese claimed two for 31.

In re­ply, Kings slumped to 39 for four in the sev­enth over but Charles led the re­cov­ery, lash­ing four fours and four six­es in adding 36 for the fifth with David and a fur­ther 39 for the sixth wick­et with Primus.

When Charles skied left-armer Reifer (2-28) to cov­er in the 15th over, Primus and Wiese put on 29 for the sev­enth to keep the run chase alive.

CMC

Scores:

TALLAWAHS 163 for eight off 20 overs (Ray­mon Reifer 62; Scott Kuggelei­jn 3-44) vs KINGS 164 for eight off 19.5 overs (John­son Charles 62, Roshon Primus 22; Mo­ham­mad Amir 3-25). St Lu­cia Kings won by two wick­ets.