Evin Lewis, De­von Thomas and Fabi­an Allen com­bined to sti­fle Hur­ri­cane Chris Gayle, as the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots stunned the Ja­maican Tall­wahs by four wick­ets in a record-break­ing Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League run-chase at Warn­er Park in St Kitts on Tues­day night.

Af­ter Gayle hit a blis­ter­ing 62-ball 116, his 22nd ca­reer T20 cen­tu­ry and fourth in the CPL, to guide the Tallawahs to a record 241 for four, Lewis hit the fastest ever CPL 50, Thomas a quick­fire 71, while Allen de­liv­ered the fi­nal blow as the Pa­tri­ots got home with sev­en balls to spare in a match which broke sev­er­al world T20 and CPL records.

The re­sult moved the Pa­tri­ots to two points from three match­es and third on the six-team ta­ble be­hind joint lead­ers Guyana Ama­zon War­riors and Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, who both have six points. Tallawahs re­mained win­less from their two games, as are the St Lu­cia Zouks and Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents, who play the Pa­tri­ots Wednes­day.

Ear­li­er, while many wrote them off af­ter Gayle’s cen­tu­ry gave the vis­i­tors the high­est ever CPL to­tal, Lewis and Thomas took on the vis­it­ing bowlers, get­ting the Pa­tri­ots off to a blis­ter­ing start to give the home fans hope of an up­set vic­to­ry.

The Pa­tri­ots open­ers shared in an 85-run part­ner­ship to set the plat­form the team need­ed. Lewis’ record 18-ball 53, laced with three fours and six six­es, kept them well ahead of the re­quired 12-plus an over re­quired run rate.

When Thomas lost Lewis, who gloved an An­dre Rus­sell de­liv­ery to wick­et-keep­er Glen Phillips go­ing for a cut shot, Lau­rie Evans came to the crease with the Pa­tri­ots still with over 14 overs left.

Evans him­self con­tributed a 20-ball 41from the oth­er end as Thomas con­tin­ued to take the fight to the Tallawahs bowlers. They com­piled a 76-run part­ner­ship be­fore Evans was caught by Rus­sell on the cov­er bound­ary af­ter he checked his shot off pac­er Os­hane Thomas.

Pa­tri­ots were pre­car­i­ous­ly poised at 161-2 and any re­sult was pos­si­ble at that stage. Then came the 13th over, where a three-wick­et burst from Thomas gave Tallawahs the im­pe­tus they felt had swung the mo­men­tum back in their favour for good. Thomas bagged the prized scalp of Thomas off his first ball but had to thank a su­perb one-hand­ed catch by a sprawl­ing wick­et-keep­er Phillips, af­ter Thomas got a thick out­side edge on a de­liv­ery lined on off stump. Three balls lat­er, Pa­tri­ots skip­per Car­los Braith­waite loft­ed Thomas to­wards the deep cov­er bound­ary but picked out Rus­sell to be dis­missed for a three-ball duck. And off the last ball of the over, Ja­son Mo­hammed gloved a short de­liv­ery lined on the leg stump to Phillips for a two-ball duck as Pa­tri­ots slipped to 177-5.

But with the home fans will­ing them on, Allen com­bined with Shamarh Brooks (27) in a 50-run sixth-wick­et part­ner­ship to steer the Pa­tri­ots to with­in reach of a thrilling vic­to­ry.

Brooks was bowled by Rus­sell off the first ball of the penul­ti­mate over to leave Pa­tri­ots on 227 for six. But Allen slapped Rus­sell’s third de­liv­ery over the deep mid-wick­et bound­ary for six then hit the next two for bound­aries to bring fire­works from the fans off the field.

Ear­li­er, Gayle, who turns 40 lat­er this month, be­gan his birth­day cel­e­bra­tions in style, rel­ish­ing the close bound­ary lines on one of the small­er grounds in the CPL.

Gayle and Chad­wick Wal­ton dealt in bound­aries and max­i­mums, with Wal­ton ac­tu­al­ly pass­ing Gayle in scor­ing at one stage, be­fore Gayle changed gears. The Ja­maican all-rounder brought up his fifty with a six straight over the head of de­posed West In­dies T20 cap­tain Car­los Brath­waite. He reached this mile­stone off 36 balls with the150th six of his CPL ca­reer.

Wal­ton had beat Gayle to the half-cen­tu­ry mark the over be­fore, up­per-cut­ting pac­er Alzarri Joseph over third-man to achieve the feat off just 25 balls and in­clud­ing fours and six six­es in it.

Gayle even­tu­al­ly pressed on to his hun­dred, which in­clud­ed sev­en fours and 10 six­es.

And just as the fans had caught their breath Man-of-the-match Lewis brought them off their seats again be­fore Pa­tri­ots de­liv­ered their run as the two teams com­bined for al­most 500 runs in one of the most stun­ning match­es thus far in the tour­na­ment.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS 241-4 (Chris Gayle 116, Chad­wick Wal­ton 73, Fabi­an Allen 2/30, Alzarri Joseph 2/39) v ST KITTS NEVIS PA­TRI­OTS 246-6 (De­von Thomas 71, Evin Lewis 53, Lau­rie Evans 41, Fabi­an Allen 37, Os­hane Thomas 4/53, An­dre Rus­sell 2/54)

Re­sult: ST KITTS NEVIS PA­TRI­OTS WON BY 4 WK­TS

Man-of-the-Match: Evin Lewis (STKNP)