The two se­nior bowlers on the St Kitts/Nevis Pa­tri­ots team went for 90 runs and af­ter this, it was al­ways go­ing to be dif­fi­cult to keep the St Lu­cia Zouks from win­ning their third match of the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) 2020 tour­na­ment at the Bri­an Lara Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day morn­ing.

SCORES: St Lu­cia Zouks 172/6 ver­sus St Kitts/Nevis Pa­tri­ots 162/8. Zouks won by 10 runs.

West In­dies seam­er Shel­don Cot­trell leaked 49 runs from his four overs while Pak­istani So­hail Tan­veer gave away 41, al­though he grabbed two wick­ets, as the Zouks pros­pered, due to the duo's poor work.

Au con­traire, Zouks off-spin­ner Ros­ton Chase was bril­liant in tak­ing 3/12 off his four overs, to break their bat­ting and re­strict the Pa­tri­ots to 162/8.

Ear­li­er, open­er Fletch­er smoked 46 off 33 balls with one six and six fours, while Mark Deyal ham­mered 30 off 17 balls with three six­es. When these two fin­ished their work, the Afghan pair of Na­jibul­lah Zad­ran 28 off 24 balls with three six­es and Muham­mad Nabi 35 not out off 22 balls with three six­es and a four, took over.

The fi­nal three overs brought 45 runs and this pushed the score well be­yond the 150-run mark that looked pos­si­ble ear­li­er on. Skip­per Rayad Em­rit was bril­liant with the ball in tak­ing 1/14 off his four overs, while spin­ner Jon Russ Jagges­sar took 2/29 but the oth­ers strug­gled. The com­bined 12 overs from Em­rit, Jagge­sar, and Ish Sod­hi went for 82 runs.

Chase was as tight as the T&T econ­o­my and con­ced­ed just 12 runs from his four overs and took three wick­ets for good mea­sure. He adopt­ed a tight line and al­lowed the bats­men to make the er­rors. Those who fell for his trap were Evin Lewis who scored a rapid 29, Joshua Da Sil­va (1) and Aus­tralian Ben Dunk (5).

Da Sil­va dropped af­ter a 41-ball 41 in the open­ing match, seemed con­fused and at­tacked a de­liv­ery that was just not there. He will have to sit and have a clear bat­ting plan mov­ing for­ward. No doubt the drop af­ter his 41 not out would have left him think­ing about what was the right ap­proach.

Ramdin, us­ing all his ex­pe­ri­ence then kept his team in the game with 46 runs from 35 balls with two six­es and two fours. How­ev­er, a slew of wick­ets from overs 10 to 17 saw their in­ten­si­ty drop and al­though Cot­trell slammed 26 not out off 11 balls with three six­es, they fell 10 runs short in the end. Ramdin was good at ma­noeu­vring the ball and upped the tem­po when it was re­quired. He faced 35 balls, strik­ing two six­es and two fours.

New Zealan­der Scott Kuggelei­jn was bril­liant to­wards the end in tak­ing 4/33 to has­ten the Pa­tri­ots' demise.

Em­rit, speak­ing af­ter the loss, said: "We lost the plot in the last two overs. A score of 160 would have been with­in our reach. The pres­sure is now on us but we have been in this po­si­tion be­fore, so I see no rea­son why we can't make it to the semis."

Zouks skip­per Dar­ren Sam­my said: "We don't have su­per­stars but skill lev­el is right up there. Good mix, boils down to ex­e­cu­tion, did that re­al­ly well."

SCORES GAME 7

At BLCA: St Lu­cia Zouks 172/6 (20) (An­dre Fletch­er 46, Muham­mad Nabi 35no, Mark Deyal 35, Na­jibul­lah Zad­ran 28, Jon Russ Jagge­sar 2/29, So­hail Tan­vir 2/41, Rayad Em­rit 1/14) vs St Kitts/Nevis Pa­tri­ots 162/8 (20) (De­nesh Ramdin 46, Evin Lewis 29, Shel­don Cot­trell 26no, Ros­ton Chase 3/12, Scott Kuggelei­jn 4/33) - Zouks won by 10 runs.

Man of the match: Muham­mad Nabi.