Mohammad Nabi grabbed wickets to humble the St Kitts/Nevis Patriots and lead his team the St Lucia Zouks to a resounding six-wicket victory in their Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) match at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, yesterday.
SCORES: St Kitts/Nevis Patriots 110/9 versus St Lucia Zouks 111/4 (14.4)
Nabi grabbed 5/15 to help restrict the Patriots to 110/9 as their batting continued to let them down in this tournament, resulting in their fourth loss in five matches.
The Afghanistan all-rounder was simply brilliant as he grabbed two wickets in his first over and two in his second over to send the Patriots into panic mode very early after being sent in. After three overs, Patriots batsmen were running around looking to pad up quickly as the score read 11/4.
Nabi became the first player in the history of the CPL to take four wickets in the powerplay. He also became the fourth player in the world to achieve the feat. The only other player to have more wickets than Nabi in the powerplay is Indian fast bowler Ishant Sharma who took five.
Nabi's final tally puts his third in terms of the best bowling in CPL history. At the top of the pile is Shakib Al Hasan with 6/6 against the Red Steel back in 2013 in Barbados and Sohail Tanvir 5/3 in 2017.
Set the relatively simple task of getting 111 runs to win the match, the Zouks sent out Rahkeem Cornwall with instructions as the rain was about to come. He slammed 20 runs off the first over bowled by Tanvir and although he fell soon after for 26, the writing was on the wall. The rain did come but the break was short and all it did was to ease the pain of the Patriots, momentarily.
When play resumed, it was business as usual and although local leg-spinner Imran Khan took three wickets, the match was always in the bag for the team being led by former West Indies captain Darren Sammy.
SCORES:
St Kitts/Nevis Patriots 110/9 (20) (Ben Dunk 33, Alzarri Joseph 21no, Mahammad Nabi 5/15) vs St Lucia Zouks 111/4 (14.4) (Rahkeem Cornwall 26, Najibullah Zadran 33, Roston Chase 27 no, Imran Khan 3/23) - Zouks won by 6 wkts.
Player of the match: Mohammad Nabi.
