Play­er-of-the-Match Col­in Munro and skip­per Nicholas Pooran scored im­pres­sive half cen­turies as the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers dis­patched the win­less Bar­ba­dos Roy­als by sev­en wick­ets in the Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League match-up at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do, on Fri­day night.

The Roy­als, look­ing for their first win of the tour­na­ment, got up to 178 for six in their 20 overs af­ter be­ing put in to bat at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um by the home side.

Open­er Munro then hit 67 off 44 balls, while Pooran an­chored the Knight Rid­ers with an un­beat­en 65 off 40 de­liv­er­ies to see them to 179 for three in 17.5 overs.

The re­sult left the Roy­als root­ed to the bot­tom of the ta­ble with­out a win in their four match­es, while it cat­a­pult­ed the Knight Rid­ers to first po­si­tion on eight points from five match­es, ahead of the Saint Lu­cia Kings on net run rate.

It was al­ways go­ing to be tough for the Roy­als to de­fend their to­tal against the Knight Rid­ers’ pow­er­ful bat­ting line­up, and it took just one over for Munro to get go­ing.

He greet­ed fast bowler Chris Green by pulling him over mid­wick­et for six off the first ball of the sec­ond over and hit him for two fours on his way to col­lect­ing 16 runs from the over.

Fel­low pac­er Eathan Bosch was al­so hit for a six and four in the next over that al­so yield­ed 16 runs, as the Knight Rid­ers raced to 33 with­out loss af­ter three overs.

Alex Hales was be­gin­ning to get in­to his groove, hit­ting Ra­mon Sim­monds for a six and four off con­sec­u­tive de­liv­er­ies, but mist­imed a dri­ve off the same bowler and was caught at cov­er for 19 to give the Roy­als their first break­through at 55 for one.

One run lat­er, Kea­cy Car­ty was bril­liant­ly caught one-hand­ed by Kadeem Al­leyne at short third man off the bowl­ing of spin­ner Jomel War­ri­can.

His dis­missal brought Pooran to the crease, and to­geth­er with Munro, the pair took the match com­plete­ly away from the Roy­als dur­ing a 93-run part­ner­ship in just over eight overs.

Munro was giv­en a life on 27 when he was dropped by War­ri­can on the third-man bound­ary, and it proved to be a cost­ly one, as he brought up his 50 in 29 de­liv­er­ies by clob­ber­ing Green for con­sec­u­tive six­es in the eighth over.

Pooran was his usu­al de­struc­tive self, thump­ing Roy­als cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell for three suc­ces­sive six­es in the 10th over.

He reached his half-cen­tu­ry off 30 balls by send­ing Bosch over the long-on bound­ary for a mas­sive six.

How­ev­er, with vic­to­ry in sight, Munro need­less­ly ran him­self out at­tempt­ing a sui­ci­dal sec­ond run to make the score 149 for three.

In all, Munro hit four six­es and four fours.

Kieron Pol­lard joined Pooran at the crease, and they com­fort­ably chased down the to­tal with 13 balls re­main­ing.

Ear­li­er, sev­er­al of the Roy­als’ bat­ters got starts but failed to push on.

Sher­fane Ruther­ford smashed 45 from 22 balls with four six­es and three fours, Kadeem Al­leyne hit 41 from 37 balls, Pow­ell had a cameo of 31 off 15 de­liv­er­ies, while Bran­don King made 29 from 23 balls.

Ruther­ford and Pow­ell’s pow­er hit­ting helped the Roy­als fin­ish with a bang, as they blud­geoned 60 runs from the last five overs af­ter they were strug­gling at 118 for three in the 15th over.

An­dre Rus­sell was the Knight Rid­ers’ best bowler with 3-37, while Mo­ham­mad Amir took 2-35.

SUM­MARISED SCORES

ROY­ALS 178-6 in 20 overs (Sher­fane Ruther­ford 45, Kadeem Al­leyne 41, Rov­man Pow­ell 31, Bran­don King 29, Quin­ton de Kock 17; An­dre Rus­sell 3-37, Mo­ham­mad Amir 2-35) vs KNIGHT RID­ERS 179-3 in 17.5 overs (Col­in Munro 67, Nicholas Pooran 65 not out, Alex Hales 19, Kieron Pol­lard 19 not out).

(CMC)