New Zealand all-rounder Jim­my Nee­sham bowled the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) to a bril­liant 11-run win over the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots to get the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons off to a fine start in this year's Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day night.

With the Pa­tri­ots need­ing 13 runs to win in the last over, Nee­sham bowled Us­ama Mir (24) with his sec­ond ball and last man Shel­don Cot­trell for a duck with his fourth, con­ced­ing just one run and fin­ish­ing with three wick­ets for 18 runs, to snatch vic­to­ry for debu­tant skip­per Kieron Pol­lard's men.

Pa­tri­ots' Fabi­an Pierre had turned the match in the 16th over by hit­ting debu­tant TKR leg-spin­ner Seekkuge Prasan­na for four six­es, all of them de­posit­ed over the leg-side bound­ary, as the Pa­tri­ots got 27 runs and moved to 111 for five to set up a tar­get of 42 runs from the last four overs to get to their 153-run win­ning tar­get.

But Allen went for one loft­ed dri­ve too many in the very next over when he hit Pak­istani pac­er Mo­ham­mad Has­nain to deep third man and was bril­liant­ly caught for a 14-ball 30 by a slid­ing Pras­sana, who then flashed the sig­na­ture cel­e­bra­tion made fa­mous by Ja­maican sprint­er Us­ain Bolt to the de­light of the fans. More im­por­tant­ly, Prasan­na was hap­py to make amends for the pre­vi­ous over he bowled by hav­ing a hand in dis­miss­ing Pierre to leave the Pa­tri­ots at 119 for six.

Has­nain then got two vi­tal wick­ets in the penul­ti­mate over to set up Nee­sham's last over blitz. First, Mo­ham­mad Hafeez walked across his wick­et to try a scoop shot and on­ly man­aged to tick­le a ball lined on off stump to wick­et-keep­er De­nesh Ramdin. Rayad Em­rit then skied a catch to Nee­sham at long-on to leave Pa­tri­ots at 140-8.

But with TKR own­er and In­di­an Bol­ly­wood star Shahrukh Khan and the TKR fans on the edge of their seats, it was still down to Neehsam hold­ing his nerves in the fi­nal over with Mir in spoil­er mode. How­ev­er, Nee­sham ac­cept­ed the chal­lenge with his four-ball fi­nal over spurt to re­strict the Pa­tri­ots to 141 all out, which lat­er earned him the man-of-the-match award.

Ear­li­er, skip­per Pol­lard, in his first home match at the TKR helm in place of the in­jured Dwayne Bra­vo, hit a quick­fire 47 to lead TKR to 152-7 af­ter pac­er Cot­trell had ripped out the TKR top or­der in­side the first five overs.

Cot­trell struck in the very first over of the match, up­root­ing Sunil Nar­ine's mid­dle stump for a duck with just two runs on the board and cel­e­brat­ing with his trade­mark sol­dier's salute. New­com­er Tion Web­ster joined Lendl Sim­mons but the pair had hard­ly been to­geth­er when Cot­trell struck again in his sec­ond over, bowl­ing Web­ster off an in­side edge to leave TKR strug­gling at 11 for two.

Cot­trell's open­ing part­ner Alzarri Joseph joined the par­ty in the next over, bowl­ing Sim­mons off an un­der-edge with on­ly 20 runs to TKR's tal­ly. At this stage, the home fans were fear­ing the worst.

But Nee­sham then joined Ramdin and the pair did some re­pair work with a 60-run part­ner­ship. With the score on 80 in the 12th over, Nee­sham, try­ing to up the run rate, chanced his hand off medi­um-pac­er Em­rit twice. Off the sec­ond ball, he skied a mis­cued loft­ed cov­er dri­ve off Em­rit be­hind the wick­et but Cot­trell dropped it at deep third man. Two balls lat­er Nee­sham, on 33, tried a sim­i­lar shot, again mist­imed it and could on­ly look on as Pa­tri­ots skip­per Car­los Braith­waite ran in at long-off and scooped up the ball just be­fore it touched the turf.

This brought Pol­lard to the crease and he and Ramdin shared in a rapid 54-run fifth-wick­et part­ner­ship to see TKR to 134 be­fore Cot­trell re­turned in his sec­ond spell to re­move Ramdin, caught by Allen for a well-played run-a-ball 33 - an in­nings which was more im­por­tant be­cause he held the team's in­nings to­geth­er.

Pol­lard's fine knock came to an end when he skied a short de­liv­ery from Em­rit to Ot­t­ley on the deep cov­er bound­ary in the fi­nal over. His in­nings came off just 32 balls and in­clud­ed four fours and three six­es.

Af­ter open­ers Evin Lewis and Kjorn Ot­t­ley got Pa­tri­ots to a smooth start, Neehsam fi­nal­ly broke the part­ner­ship when he got the lat­ter to sky an at­tempt­ed pull shot and he took the catch him­self, leav­ing the Pa­tri­ots at 42 for one.

Left-arm spin­ner Khary Pierre then got the break­through TKR re­al­ly need­ed in the 11th over when Lewis went for an ex­pan­sive on-dri­ve and suc­ceed­ed on­ly in find­ing Nee­sham at long-off. His 36 came off 27 balls and in­clud­ed two fours and three six­es.

Debu­tant leg-break bowler Seekkuge Prasan­na then pulled the home side right back when he got home­boy Ja­son Mo­hammed for a duck, caught on the long-on bound­ary by Pierre as the Pa­tri­ots slipped to 72 for three.

Pierre then tricked De­von Thomas in­to com­ing down the pitch and sky­ing one to Nar­ine at short third man as the Pa­tri­ots' tum­bled to 74 for four.

Skip­per Car­los Braith­waite came in but he was run out in the next over by Prasan­na af­ter a mix-up with Mo­ham­mad Hafeez, who ini­tial­ly re­spond­ed to his cap­tain's call for a run then changed his mind as Sim­mons com­bined with Pras­sana to re­move the Pa­tri­ots skip­per, as the vis­i­tors lost four wick­ets for just six runs to stut­ter to 76 for five.

Af­ter that, Pa­tri­ots sim­ply lost their com­po­sure chas­ing the runs un­der score­board pres­sure and al­though Pierre and Mir pro­vid­ed some late hit­ting hero­ics, they could not get them over the line.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

TKR 152-7 (Kieron Pol­lard 47, De­nesh Ramdin 33, Jim­my Nee­sham 33, Shel­don Cot­trell 3/13, Rayad Em­rit 3/39) v SKN PA­TRI­OTS 141 all out (Evin Lewis 36, Fabi­an Allen 30, Us­ama Mir 24, Jim­my Nee­sham 3/18, Mo­ham­mad Has­nain 3/36, Khary Pierre 2/20)

Re­sult: TKR WON BY 11 RUNS