There will be no Ja­maica Tallawahs in this year’s Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League play­offs.

The St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots en­sured this ma­te­ri­alised on Thurs­day night when they hum­bled the Tallawahs by 20 runs at Sabi­na Park, Kingston, thanks to a bril­liant half-cen­tu­ry by Fabi­an Allen.

Allen, a Ja­maican and play­ing at his home ground at Sabi­na Park, hit an un­beat­en 27-ball 62 to guide Pa­tri­ots to 176-6, be­fore Alzarri Joseph (2/37), Rayad Em­rit (2/17) and Shel­don Cot­trell (2/33) grabbed two wick­ets apiece as the Tallawahs were re­strict­ed to 156 all out.

Tallawahs’ sixth loss in sev­en match­es meant they were elim­i­nat­ed from play­off con­tention with three match­es left af­ter one of their most hor­ren­dous runs in the his­to­ry of the tour­na­ment. While the Tallawahs still have a math­e­mat­i­cal chance of mak­ing the play­offs if they can at­tain a max­i­mum eight points by win­ning their re­main­ing three match­es, this will de­pend on oth­er re­sults go their way as well. Based on their cur­rent form, how­ev­er, no one will give them such a chance. At best, it is now a Tallawahs dream which the pa­tri­ots sure­ly dashed Thurs­day night.

The Pa­tri­ots mean­while joined the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers on joint sec­ond on the six-team ta­ble, which is led by the un­beat­en Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (10 pts), both teams on eight points each but the TKR with a bet­ter net run rate. The Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents and St Lu­cia Zouks are both on two points but with sev­en and six match­es left in their cam­paigns.

How­ev­er, the Tallawahs have on­ly them­selves to blame for their lat­est de­feat, as they had the Pa­tri­ots strug­gling in their in­nings but let them re­cov­er to post a chal­leng­ing to­tal. And their tal­is­men, Chris Gayle and An­dre Rus­sell, then failed to de­liv­er when they need­ed them most – which has been the team’s main is­sue this sea­son.

The Pa­tri­ots were reel­ing af­ter the Tallawahs bowlers re­moved open­ers De­von Thomas (3) and Evin Lewis (7) in­side the first three overs.

Thomas tried to dri­ve medi­um-pac­er Dwayne Smith’s fourth de­liv­ery in­to the cov­ers and got a thick edge straight through to wick­et-keep­er Glenn Phillips in the sec­ond over. The dan­ger­ous Lewis then pulled the last ball of pac­er Jade Dern­bach’s first over, the in­nings’ third, straight down the throat of Chad­wick Wal­ton at deep mid-wick­et as the vis­i­tors slipped to 19-2.

Lau­rie Evans and Mo­ham­mad Hafeez start­ed a re­cov­ery with a 46-run third-wick­et part­ner­ship, but Ra­maal Lewis broke it with a bit of bril­liance in the field in the ninth over from spin­ner Za­hir Khan. Evans played a blis­ter­ing cut shot to point, prob­a­bly felt it was good for at least two or per­haps four runs and took off for a sin­gle, on­ly to see Lewis dive bril­liant­ly and ex­e­cute a stop. As Lewis gath­ered the ball, Hafeez sent Evans (21) back but it was too late as wick­et-keep­er Phillips had al­ready col­lect­ed the re­turn from Lewis and ex­e­cut­ed the run-out. The Pa­tri­ots were then 65-3.

Things got worse 11 runs lat­er when Shamar Springer got Hafeez (37) to put his cov­er dri­ve straight at Gayle. Shamar Brooks fol­lowed four runs lat­er, lbw to Khan, and skip­per Car­los Braith­waite quick­ly fol­lowed him to the pavil­ion, as he tried an ill-ad­vised pull shot off Rus­sell, nev­er got the tim­ing right and was gob­bled up by Javelle Glen at cov­er, as the Pa­tri­ots slid to 82-6.

But Keron Cot­toy (27*) now joined Allen and the two stood res­olute to bat through the re­main­der of the in­nings. They creamed 81 runs off the last five overs as Allen hit sev­en fours and three six in his in­nings. They al­so set a new CPL record for a sev­enth-wick­et part­ner­ship of 94.

In their turn at the crease, the Tallawahs were be­hind the eight-ball ear­ly on as well when Cot­trell got the dan­ger­ous Gayle in just the third over of their in­nings.

Hav­ing trou­bled Gayle in his first over with some outswingers which beat the vet­er­an’s bat, Cot­trell got the Tallawahs skip­per to play an un­con­trolled pull shot high in­to the night sky. When it came down Cot­toy glee­ful­ly ac­cept­ed the catch at mid-wick­et.

Joseph then de­liv­ered a dou­ble strike with the wick­ets of Chad­wick Wal­ton (1), caught and bowled, and Dwayne Smith (4), caught at mid-on, as the Tallawahs’ slumped to 46-3.

Im­ran Khan joined Glenn Phillips at the crease and the two briefly gave the home fans some hope with a 69-run fourth-wick­et part­ner­ship.

When Khan was out for a well-played 20, caught and bowled by Mo­ham­mad Hafeez, Rus­sell strode to the crease for the 15th over and the home fans still had hope, he hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly won many a match in sim­i­lar sce­nar­ios for the team.

But on this night it was not to be, as Rus­sell in­ex­plic­a­bly pulled the first ball he saw from Em­rit, was nev­er in con­trol of the shot and skied it high in­to the night where Cot­trell took the catch and flashed his sig­na­ture sol­dier’s salute as the Pa­tri­ots be­gan ear­ly cel­e­bra­tions.

There­after, Phillips got to a well-played 87 be­fore he was out try­ing keep the scor­ing up and Shamar Springer would bring the Tallawahs as close as he could to the score they need­ed with a 20-ball 30, but he sim­ply did not have the sup­port around him by then.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

ST KITTS NEVIS PA­TRI­OTS 176-6 (20) (Fabi­an Allen 62*, Mo­ham­mad Hazeef 37, Keron Cot­toy 27*, An­dre Rus­sell 1/17, Dwayne Smith 1/18) v JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS 156 all out (19.5) (Glenn Phillips 87, Rayad Em­rit 2/21, Shel­don Cot­trell 2/33, Alzarri Joseph 2/37)

Re­sult: STKNP WON BY 20 RUNS

Man-of-the-match: Fabi­an Allen (STKNP)