Home­boy Shim­ron Het­my­er scored a rapid half-cen­tu­ry to steer the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors to an eight-wick­et win over the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots as ac­tion in the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League con­tin­ued at the Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um in Guyana on Sat­ur­day night.

Het­my­er lashed sev­en fours and three six­es in com­pil­ing an un­beat­en 70 in just 47 balls as the War­riors, chas­ing Pa­tri­ots’ 153-8, got there with sev­en balls to spare. The tal­ly was Het­my­er’s third half-cen­tu­ry of his CPL ca­reer and pushed the War­riors to joint top of the six-team ta­ble along­side the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, both sides on four points each from two wins in as many match­es.

But Het­my­er’s job was made a lot eas­i­er by the foun­da­tion laid by the open­ing pair of Chan­der­paul Hem­raj and Bran­don King. The pair belt­ed the ball to all parts of the ground in the pow­er play overs as they put on 63 runs.

The part­ner­ship was fi­nal­ly bro­ken in the sev­enth over when Hem­raj guid­ed Car­los Braith­waite back­ward point on­ly to see a fly­ing Fabi­an Pierre pluck the ball out of the air.

Het­my­er then joined King and quick­ly took over the pro­ceed­ings, outscor­ing his more se­nior part­ner. King was fi­nal­ly out in the 12 over for 27 when he was smart­ly tak­en by Us­ama Mir at short third man, Mir hav­ing put him down two balls be­fore in the same spot, to leave the War­riors at 95-2.

Skip­per Shoaib Ma­lik then joined Het­my­er and the two shared in an un­bro­ken third-wick­et part­ner­ship of 64 to steer their team home with Het­my­er play­ing some blis­ter­ing shots to the de­light of the home fans.

Ear­li­er, the Pa­tri­ots got off to a hor­ren­dous start when they lost two wick­ets be­fore the pow­er play was done.

Kjorn Ot­t­ley, hav­ing got a re­prieve when he was bowled off a no-ball by Keemo Paul on just 10, didn’t add much to his score when he was run out in a mix-up with Evin Lewis the very next over with the ad­di­tion of just five more runs to his to­tal.

Khan then in­duced a poor shot from Lewis in three overs lat­er as the vis­i­tors slipped to 31 for two. The hard-hit­ting Trinida­di­an left-han­der sur­vived an lbw call off the fourth ball of leg-spin­ner Shadab Khan’s sec­ond over, then holed out to Paul in the deep go­ing for a big shot the very next ball.

Pa­tri­ots strug­gled to score runs there­after and it was on­ly a well-craft­ed half-cen­tu­ry from De­von Thomas which en­sured they got a de­cent to­tal. Thomas scored 62 off 49 balls in­clud­ing sev­en fours and two six­es be­fore he was bril­liant­ly caught on the bound­ary by a div­ing Khan.

Some late hit­ting hero­ics from Fabi­an Allen (33) and two bound­aries from Alzarri Joseph in the fi­nal over helped them get over the 150 mark.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

ST KITTS NEVIS PA­TRI­OTS 153-8 (De­von Thomas 62, Fabi­an Allen 33, Shadab Khan 2/20, Ben Laugh­lin 2/43) v GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 159-2 (Shim­ron Het­my­er 70 no, Chan­der­paul Hem­raj 39, Bran­don King 27, Shoaib Ma­lik 23 no)

Re­sult: GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS WON BY 8 WK­TS