Do­minic Drakes could be named the Prime Min­is­ter of St Kitts and Nevis by Sun­day morn­ing.

This af­ter the 21-year-old left-arm medi­um-pac­er bowled the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots in­to the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League play­offs af­ter a nail-bit­ing one-run win over the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents at the Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos on Sat­ur­day night.

With the Tri­dents need­ing two runs off the last ball to get to the 150 need­ed for vic­to­ry, Drakes ran in and bowled a peach of a de­liv­ery which clipped the top of tailen­der Har­ry Gur­ney’s off stump to si­lence the en­tire venue, ex­cept for the Pa­tri­ots fans of course and his team­mates who were now drunk with glee.

On­ly mo­ments be­fore that, Ray­mon Reifer had had the Tri­dents fans jump­ing for joy in an­tic­i­pa­tion of a vic­to­ry and their own pos­si­ble play­off qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

But with Tri­dents need­ing 12 off the last over, Pa­tri­ots skip­per Car­los Braith­waite took a gam­ble by giv­ing the Bar­ba­di­an Drakes, the son of for­mer West In­dies pac­er Vas­bert Drakes, the ball.

And Brath­waite won the lot­to with his pick.

Drakes start­ed shak­i­ly, bowl­ing a wide then see­ing Reifer blast his first le­gal ball for a bril­liant six over ex­tra cov­er off the first le­gal one. He bowled a fuller ball next, forc­ing Reifer to dri­ve to­wards long-off. How­ev­er, seek­ing the strike, Reifer went for a sui­ci­dal sec­ond run and was run out af­ter Lau­rie Evans re­layed a per­fect throw from deep long-off to wick­et-keep­er De­von Thomas at the strik­er’s end. The last Tri­dents pair of Gur­ney and Chemar Hold­er (0) could on­ly muster three sin­gles off Drakes next three de­liv­er­ies be­fore he cleaned up Gur­ney for one.

The vic­to­ry pushed the Pa­tri­ots to 10 points and over the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (9 pts) in­to sec­ond spot, as­sur­ing them of ac­tion in the play­off phase along­side the al­ready qual­i­fied un­beat­en Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (14 pts).

But the Tri­dents (6 pts) do not have time to lick their wounds, as they have a quick turn­around be­fore they host the fourth-placed St Lu­cia Zouks (7 pts) on Sun­day in what is now a do-or-die match for both teams with a fi­nal play­off spot the ul­ti­mate prize.

If they are to win Sun­day, Tri­dents will have to find a way to bat more sen­si­bly than they did Sat­ur­day night.

Af­ter new re­cruit Shak­ib Al Hasan, in his first match in the tour­na­ment, shared in two mi­ni part­ner­ships with Alex Hales (19) and JP Du­miny which took them to 85-3, every­thing be­gan to crum­ble when the Bangladesh all-rounder de­part­ed.

Al Hasan was caught at long-on by Shamarh Brooks for 38 af­ter he ran down the wick­et in the 12th over to Brath­waite and tried a loft­ed dri­ve. Brath­waite then struck an­oth­er big blow with the last ball of the over when he got Jonathan Carter (2) to chop the ball on­to his stumps, as the home side sud­den­ly found them­selves at 87-4.

Af­ter Tri­dents added just eight more runs, Rayad Em­rit (2/24) got the prized scalp of Tri­dents skip­per Ja­son Hold­er. Re­strict­ed from free-scor­ing for al­most six balls, Hold­er lost his pa­tience and went for a big cov­er dri­ve which he on­ly skied in­to the air to be com­fort­ably caught by Brath­waite at mid-off, the home side now im­plod­ing at 95-5.

Ash­ley Nurse (2) and Du­miny (18) quick­ly fol­lowed Hold­er back to the dugout and the Tri­dents need­ed 45 runs off the last four overs with on­ly Reifer and the tailen­ders left to fight the cause.

Reifer got them close with a quick-fire 18-ball 38 but could not bring it home thanks to Drakes’ last over hero­ics.

Shel­don Cot­trell (3/27) and Brath­waite (3/30) were the pick of the Pa­tri­ots bowlers but on this night Drakes’ (1/25) last over was all that mat­tered.

Ear­li­er, Shamarh Brooks had saved the Pa­tri­ots from falling to a small to­tal with a 33-ball 53, which in­clud­ed six fours and two six­es. More im­por­tant­ly, he held the in­nings to­geth­er as the oth­er ma­jor bats­men fell around him with the Tri­dents bowl­ing tight­ly through­out.

In fact, on­ly De­von Thomas and Fa­bi­en Allen, both with 20, of­fered any oth­er re­sis­tance to the Tri­dents at­tack, which was led by Hay­den Walsh (2/37) and Gur­ney (2/23), who both got two wick­ets each.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

ST KITTS NEVIS PA­TRI­OTS 149-7 (20) (Shamarh Brooks 53, De­von Thomas 20, Fabi­an Allen 20, Hay­den Walsh 2/37, Har­ry Gur­ney 2/23, Shak­ib al Hasan 1/14) v BAR­BA­DOS TRI­DENTS 148 all out (20) (Shak­ib Al Hasan 38, Ray­mon Reifer 34, Alex Hailes 19, Shel­don Cot­trell 3/27, Car­los Brath­waite 3/30, Rayad Em­rit 2/24)

Re­sult: ST KITTS NEVIS PA­TRI­OTS WON BY 1 RUN

Man-of-the-match: Car­los Brath­waite (STKNP)