South African all­rounder Chris Green starred with bat and ball as the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors opened their 2019 Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League cam­paign with a 13-run win over the St Lu­cia Zouks at the Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um in Guyana Thurs­day night.

Green first hit 28 and shared in a vi­tal 48-run sev­enth-wick­et part­ner­ship with Keemo Paul to steer the War­riors to 155 for nine in their 20 overs be­fore tak­ing two for with his off-breaks to re­strict­ing the vis­i­tors to 142 for nine.

With the win, the War­riors moved to two points along­side de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, who won their open­er against the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots by 11 runs Wednes­day, at the top of the six-team ta­ble ear­ly on in the tour­na­ment.

Chas­ing what they be­lieved a mod­est to­tal and with all­rounder Rakheem Corn­wall mo­tor­ing on 36 with sev­en fours and a six from just 14 balls, Green struck the game-chang­ing blow of the match in the sixth over.

Bowl­ing around the wick­et, Green struck the burly Corn­wall di­rect­ly on the toe as he played across the line to a full de­liv­ery. Corn­wall didn't seem per­turbed by the ap­peal but um­pire Nigel Duguid raised the dread­ed fin­ger to send him back to the pavil­ion with the score on 52 for three.

Green had al­so struck in his sec­ond over, the third of the in­nings, get­ting An­drew Mc­Carthy (7) to mis­cue his loft­ed dri­ve straight in­to the hands of Paul at mid-off. When he re­moved Corn­wall two overs lat­er, the flood gates were seem­ing­ly opened.

Af­ter Con­r­wall's de­par­ture, on­ly Na­jibul­lah Zad­ran (23) and Zouks skip­per Dar­ren Sam­my (18) con­tributed any­thing of note with the bat, as there was a steady stream of War­riors bats­men back and forth to the pavil­ion.

In be­tween Green's work, in­flu­en­tial Pak­istani leg­break bowler Shadab Khan bagged an eco­nom­i­cal three for 16, in­clud­ing the scalps of An­dre Fletch­er (8), Christo­pher Barn­well (7) and Sam­my, get­ting the break­through every time the Zouks tried to re­build.

How­ev­er, the Zouks have on­ly them­selves to blame for the loss, as poor field­ing saw them re­leas­ing the stran­gle­hold they had put on the War­riors ear­ly on in the first in­nings.

Paul and Green came to­geth­er with the War­riors reel­ing at 98 for six in the 16th over, af­ter Aussie leg-break bowler Fawad Ahmed de­ceived their skip­per Shoaib Ma­lik with his wrong'un and had him nice­ly stumped by wick­et­keep­er Fletch­er for 28.

But Paul quick­ly showed he did not in­tend to go in­to a shell and hit three fours and three six­es in a com­bi­na­tion with Green (28) which took the home side to 146, be­fore Paul fi­nal­ly lost his wick­et try­ing to get max­i­mum runs in the fi­nal over. He was caught at short third man by Fawad as he stretched to reach a widish de­liv­ery from Mc­Coy and was nev­er in con­trol of his loft­ed shot.

Khan didn't last long, sky­ing a loft­ed dri­ve in­to the wait­ing arms of This­ara Per­era at long-off be­fore Green was run out go­ing for a sec­ond run off the last ball of the in­nings.

Left-arm medi­um-pac­er Mc­Coy had al­ready jolt­ed the War­riors when he got the prized scalps of Shim­ron Het­my­er (24) and Nicholas Pooran (0) off con­sec­u­tive balls in the 12th over, stun­ning the fans in­to si­lence as two of their most tal­is­man­ic bats­men were back in the pavil­ion in a flash.

And when Ma­lik was out three overs lat­er, the Zouks would cer­tain­ly have felt they had the match for the tak­ing.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 155-9 (Keemo Paul 38, Chris Green 28, Shoib Ma­lik 28, Obed Mc­Coy 4/41, Fawad Ahmed 2/25) v ST LU­CIA ZOUKS 142-9 (Rakheem Corn­wall 36, Na­jibul­lah Zad­ran 23, Dar­ren Sam­my 18, Shadab Khan 3/16, Ro­mario Shep­herd 2/18, Chris Green 2/28)

RE­SULT: AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS WON BY 13 RUNS