Open­ers Rakheem Corn­wall and An­dre Fletch­er were in no-non­sense mode at Sabi­na Park, Kingston, on Thurs­day night, as they blast­ed the St Lu­cia Zouks to a five-wick­et win over the Ja­maica Tallawahs in the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League.

Corn­wall was the most de­struc­tive, hit­ting a 30-ball 75 laced with four fours and eight max­i­mums, while Fletch­er was un­beat­en on 47 at the end as the Zouks, chas­ing 171 for vic­to­ry, got there with 20 balls to spare.

The win was the Zouks’ first of the tour­na­ment, mov­ing them to joint sec­ond place on the ta­ble along­side the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents and St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots, all three teams on two points each al­though the Zouks now have the best net run-rate. The Guyana Ama­zon War­riors and the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers re­main atop the six-team ta­ble with six points, while the Tallawahs were dead last af­ter their loss.

How­ev­er, the de­feat may yet cost the Tallawahs even more as tal­is­man all-rounder An­dre Rus­sell may be out for a few games af­ter be­ing hit on the head by a bounc­er dur­ing his in­nings.

How­ev­er, if the Tallawahs do not re­bound from their poor­est CPL start ever ­‑ they are now win­less in three games -, they can cred­it their poor field­ing for it.

They dropped Corn­wall twice and Fletch­er once dur­ing the Zouks open­ers’ de­struc­tive 111-run part­ner­ship in­side nine overs, which cer­tain­ly may have turned the game had the catch­es been held.

Corn­wall was dropped on 18 by Shamar Springer run­ning from square leg to the bound­ary for a ski­er with the score on 33 and 36 by Chad­wick Wal­ton at point, al­though he had all the time to set­tle un­der the ball be­fore drop­ping it with the score on 53.

Fletch­er mean­while got his life on 15 as pac­er Os­hane Thomas dropped a ball that was hit in his lap at third man off fel­low pac­er Der­vall Green. Corn­wall then blast­ed a six and a four off Green’s next two balls to rub salt in­to the Tallawahs’ wound.

Corn­wall even­tu­al­ly went on to com­plete his half-cen­tu­ry off 19 balls in the sixth over, in­clud­ing six max­i­mums. He was out 25 runs af­ter that, chop­ping a de­liv­ery off Springer on­to his stumps for a bel­liger­ent 30-ball 75 but by then had al­ready set Zouks up nice­ly for their first win.

Fletch­er then toned down his ag­gres­sive style to guide his team home with the mid­dle or­der and even a late three-wick­et burst from Thomas (3/26) could not halt the Zouks’ path to vic­to­ry. Fletch­er even­tu­al­ly fin­ished on 47 off 36 balls with two fours and three six­es.

The vis­i­tors had ear­li­er got off to a bril­liant start when left-arm seam­er Obed Mc­Coy re­moved vet­er­an Chris Gayle with his very first ball to the left-hand­ed tal­is­man. Mc­Coy pro­duced a de­liv­ery which jumped off the pitch and got Gayle reach­ing for it, on­ly to glove it through to wick­et-keep­er An­dre Fletch­er for a first-ball duck as the Tallawahs were six for one.

This stunned the home fans, who were hop­ing to see an­oth­er in­nings of the cal­i­bre of Gayle’s 116 in the last match against the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots, which they al­so lost de­spite set­ting a world to­tal. The fans would be stunned in­to si­lence even fur­ther in the fourth over when Chad­wick Wal­ton pulled a short Mc­Coy de­liv­ery straight in­to the wait­ing hands of John Camp­bell on the deep back­ward square bound­ary as Tallawahs stut­tered to 28-2.

Rov­man Pow­ell then joined Glenn Phillips and the two con­sol­i­dat­ed the in­nings with an 87-run stand in which both men be­gan to take on the Zouks bowl­ing. The part­ner­ship was fi­nal­ly bro­ken by leg-spin­ner Fawad Ahmed in the 11th over thanks to bril­liant work on the bound­ary by Col­in de Grand­homme. Pow­ell played a rasp­ing back foot dri­ve off the Aussie leg-break bowler to­wards the long-off bound­ary, on­ly to see de Grand­homme stop its path over the bound­ary, throw it up in the air as he was about to go over the bound­ary mark­er, toss it back to­wards the field and still had the pres­ence of mind to run back on and com­plete the catch in play. This brought a re­view from the um­pires be­fore Pow­ell’s dis­missal for a 22-ball 44, in­clud­ing one four and five six­es, was con­firmed.

Ahmed struck again in his next over, the 13th of the in­nings, when he in­duced a false shot from Phillips which was again gob­bled up by de Grand­homme at long-off with the score on 125-4. Phillips went for a top score of 58 from 34 balls, in­clud­ing eight fours and a six.

How­ev­er, the air was sucked out of the venue in the next over when An­dre Rus­sell was struck on the hel­met by a bounc­er lined at leg stump from South African Hardus Viljoen. Rus­sell went for a pull shot off a short de­liv­ery, missed and was hit un­der the right ear. As Viljoen and oth­er field­ers rushed to his as­sis­tance, Rus­sell tried un­suc­cess­ful­ly to leave the field on his own strength and was stretchered off the field and tak­en to hos­pi­tal for scans. It was lat­er re­vealed Rus­sell did not suf­fer any ma­jor in­jury but will prob­a­bly miss Fri­day’s game against the Knight Rid­ers while un­der the reg­u­la­tion con­cus­sion pro­to­col.

Af­ter Rus­sell’s de­par­ture, the in­nings fell away, giv­ing the Zouks hope they could over­haul the home side’s to­tal. And that they did com­fort­ably thanks to Corn­wall.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS 170-5 (Glenn Phillips 58, Rov­man Pow­ell 44, Fawad Ahmed 2/28, Obed Mc­Coy 2/32) v ST LU­CIA ZOUKS 171-5 (Rakheem Corn­wall 75, An­dre Fletch­er 47, Col­in de Grand­homme 25, Os­hane Thomas 3/26)

Re­sult: ST LU­CIA ZOUKS WON BY 5 WICK­ETS

Man-of-the-Match: Rakheem Corn­wall