Debu­tants Justin Greaves and Joshua Bish­op helped the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents crush the St Lu­cia Zouks by 71 runs at the Dar­ren Sam­my Sta­di­um in St Lu­cia in the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League on Fri­day night.

Both play­ers were giv­en their first-ever CPL starts by skip­per Ja­son Hold­er and re­paid him with bril­liant per­for­mances in the lop­sided win. Greaves first hit a 45-ball 57 laced with six fours and two six­es as the Tri­dents rat­tled up 172-6 in their 20 overs be­fore Bish­op bagged two wick­ets for 33 runs as Zouks were over­whelmed for 101.

The re­sult helped push the Tri­dents in­to fourth po­si­tion on the six-team ta­ble with fours point. They are now six points be­hind un­beat­en lead­ers Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (10 pts) and four be­hind the joint sec­ond-placed Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (8 pts) and St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots (8 pts).

Zouks skip­per Dar­ren Sam­my and his side will al­so have to lift their game quick­ly too, as wel­come TKR in an­oth­er key matchup on Sat­ur­day at the same venue.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the Zouks were the cre­ators of their own demise on the night, as they went about their run chase in a cav­a­lier fash­ion and lost wick­ets at crit­i­cal in­ter­vals to in­ju­di­cious shots and bril­liant field­ing.

Open­er Rakheem Corn­wall sig­nalled the home side’s at­ti­tude in the very first over. He was lucky not to be caught at mid-off by skip­per Hold­er at mid-off when he hit left-arm or­tho­dox spin­ner Bish­op for four, the ball go­ing just over Hold­er’s reach. Corn­wall got an­oth­er four in the next de­liv­ery but was caught by Hold­er go­ing for the same shot he played two balls be­fore to be dis­missed for eight.

Hold­er then got Col­in In­gram, who got a life off the first ball he faced, to cut a short-pitched de­liv­ery straight to John Lalor at short third man as the Zouks slumped to 13-2.

The slide con­tin­ued in the next over when Kavem Hodge was run out by a com­bi­na­tion of Hold­er and wick­et-keep­er Leniko Bouch­er, as An­dre Fletch­er called him for a quick sin­gle and he was late to re­spond. Zouks were now tot­ter­ing at 15 for three and still in­side the Pow­er Play.

Fletch­er and Col­in de Grand­homme then mus­tered a mi­ni re­cov­ery in a 33-run fourth-wick­et part­ner­ship. How­ev­er, when Fletch­er (14) chopped a Hold­er de­liv­ery on­to his stumps in the sixth over, it sig­nalled an­oth­er col­lapse.

Zouks skip­per Dar­ren Sam­my was out in the eighth over for just two runs to a bril­liant catch by Jonathan Carter. Sam­my got back in his crease to a short­ish ball from medi­um-pac­er Ray­mon Reifer and tried to guide it down to third man. How­ev­er, he was stunned when he looked back to see Carter sprawl­ing to his left and pluck­ing the ball out of the air with his left hand just be­fore it hit the turf at back­ward point.

The score then was 52 for five and on­ly ten runs had been added when de Grand­homme was bril­liant­ly run out by the busy Carter. Forced to go for runs by score­board pres­sure, de Grand­homme played spin­ner Sandeep Lamich­hane to back­ward point and took off for a run which was nev­er there. He was sent back by Christo­pher Barn­well, but by then Carter had al­ready swooped around, picked up the ball and ri­fled a throw which up­root­ed the stumps with a scam­per­ing de Grand­homme not even in the run-out re­play frame.

The Zouks fans were now dazed and con­fused – a hush en­velop­ing the ground as they were wit­ness­ing the dis­man­tling of their team.

And the Tri­dents did not let up there ei­ther, as they kept a steady flow of bats­men to and from the pavil­ion. Some late hit­ting from Hardus Viljoen (31) was there­after the on­ly thing which brought some smiles to the Zouks fans.

Ear­li­er, Greaves and John­son Charles set the per­fect foun­da­tion for the Tri­dents with an open­ing part­ner­ship of 81 in­side nine overs.

Mc­Coy fi­nal­ly got the break­through when he got to Charles o hole out to Kesrick Williams at long-on for 28 runs.

Greaves brought up his half-cen­tu­ry in the next over with a sin­gle off Sam­my. It came off 36 balls and in­clud­ed six fours and two six­es. But Greaves added just sev­en ore runs af­ter that be­fore be­ing dis­missed by Corn­wall, play­ing a full-blood­ed sweep to­wards the deep square leg bound­ary on­ly to see de Grand­homme take a good div­ing catch just be­fore the ball hit the ground with the score 96-2.

Carter joined JP Du­miny at the crease and the two shared a 43-run third-wick­et part­ner­ship to keep the mo­men­tum go­ing.

How­ev­er, the Zouks pulled things back by re­mov­ing Carter (30) and Du­miny (18) in quick suc­ces­sion. First, af­ter be­ing hit for six the pre­vi­ous ball, Mc­Coy pro­duced a slow­er bounc­er which Carter run down the wick­et to, blast­ed to­wards the sweep­ing bound­ary but could not beat Kavem Hodge. Six balls lat­er, Williams got Du­miny out caught at mid-wick­et, again by Hodge, as the Tri­dents slipped to 142-4 in the 18th over.

But Ashe­ly Nurse (15) and Hold­er (10*) en­sured the vis­i­tors still got to a de­fend­able to­tal.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

BAR­BA­DOS TRI­DENTS 172-6 (20) (Justin Greaves 57, Jonathan Carter 30, John­son Charles 28, Kesrick Williams 3/44, Oden Mc­Coy 2/19) v ST LU­CIA ZOUKS 101 ALL OUT (14.5) (Hardus Viljoen 31, Col­in de Grand­homme 28, Ja­son Hold­er 2/24, Joshua Bish­op 2/33)

Re­sult: BAR­BA­DOS TRI­DENTS WON BY 71 RUNS

Man-of-the-match: JONATHAN CARTER (BT)