KINGSTON—Vet­er­an open­er Chris Gayle sur­passed 13,000 Twen­ty20 runs as Ja­maica Tallawahs broke a four-game los­ing skid with a four-wick­et vic­to­ry over Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents in the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League here on Sunday.

Play­ing in steamy con­di­tions at Sabi­na Park, Tallawahs sti­fled the Tri­dents with spin, re­strict­ing them to 140 for nine off their al­lot­ted 20 overs.

Ash­ley Nurse, bat­ting at num­ber sev­en, top-scored with an ag­gres­sive 18-ball 37 while South African left-han­der JP Du­miny strug­gled for flu­en­cy in his 31 which re­quired 35 de­liv­er­ies. But they were the on­ly two to pass 20 as left-arm spin­ner Za­hir Khan weaved a web around the Tri­dents bats­men to end with three for 20 from his four overs.

New Zealan­der George Work­er, who shared the new ball with fel­low left-arm spin­ner Chris La­m­ont, fin­ished with two for 16 while off-spin­ner Ra­maal Lewis picked up two for 23.

In re­ply, Tallawahs spoiled a strong start af­ter suf­fer­ing a mi­ni-col­lapse but re­cov­ered in time to reach their tar­get with nine de­liv­er­ies left.

Cap­tain Chad­wick Wal­ton con­trolled the run chase with an un­beat­en 51 off 42 balls—his ninth CPL fift—while open­er Glenn Phillips struck 28, rook­ie Javelle Glenn 27 and Gayle, 22.

De­spite the win, Tallawahs still lie bot­tom of the stand­ings on two points while Tri­dents are just above them in fifth, al­so on two points, but with a su­pe­ri­or net run rate.

Faced with spin for the first pow­er-play, Tri­dents nev­er found their rhythm and were 44 for two at the end of the six-over pe­ri­od.

Work­er ac­count­ed for both open­ers Alex Hales (12) and John­son Charles (12) to catch­es by Lewis at point be­fore Du­miny and Leniko Bouch­er (15) stead­ied the in­nings in a 31-run, third-wick­et stand. But they too found them­selves both bogged down and Bouch­er per­ished try­ing to force the pace, tap­ping a re­turn catch to Lewis in the eighth over.

With one run added in the next over, Za­hir squared up cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er and had him caught by Gayle at slip for a first-ball ‘duck’ and when left-han­der Jonathan Carter holed out in the deep off Lewis for six, the vis­i­tors were go­ing nowhere at 70 for five in the 12th over.

But Nurse chanced his hand, lash­ing four fours and three six­es in a 49-run, sixth-wick­et stand with Du­miny, be­fore both fell in the space of two balls in sep­a­rate overs.

Phillips and Gayle then gave Tallawahs a smooth start when they put on 48 off 31 balls for the first wick­et.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly Gayle, six days shy of his 40th birth­day, be­came the first bats­man to pass 13,000 T20 runs in his 389th ap­pear­ance when he smashed off-spin­ner Nurse for the sec­ond of two six­es in the sec­ond over.

Phillips, mean­while, count­ed four fours and a six off 15 balls be­fore be­com­ing the first ca­su­al­ty, caught in the deep off Hold­er (2-21) in the sixth over and Gayle fol­lowed in the same over, al­so caught down the ground af­ter be­ing dropped off the pre­vi­ous de­liv­ery by Hay­den Walsh run­ning in from square leg.

When Walsh (2-32) re­moved both Work­er (2) and Dwayne Smith (0) in suc­ces­sive de­liv­er­ies in the ninth over to leave the in­nings on 68 for four, Tri­dents were back in the con­test but Wal­ton pro­duced a ma­ture knock to steer Tallawahs to vic­to­ry. He struck a four and reached his sec­ond half-cen­tu­ry of the cam­paign with the last of his five six­es—a sol­id blow over long-on off medi­um-pac­er Carter which took the hosts past their tar­get. Cru­cial­ly, he post­ed 45 for the fifth wick­et with Glenn who blast­ed a four and three six­es in a 12-ball knock. (CMC)

BAR­BA­DOS TRI­DENTS 140-9 (Ash­ley Nurse 37, JP Du­miny 31, Za­hir Khan 3/20, George Work­er 2/16, Ra­maal Lewis 2/23) v JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS 145-6 (Chad­wick Wal­ton 51*, Glenn Phillips 28, Ja­son Hold­er 2/21, Hay­den Walsh Jr 2/32)

Re­sult: JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS WON BY 4 WICK­ETS

Man-of-the-match: Chad­wick Wal­ton (JT)