Lendl Sim­mons and De­nesh Ramdin hit pol­ished half-cen­turies as the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers cruised to a sev­en-wick­et win over the St Lu­cia Zouks and their third straight vic­to­ry in this year's Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League.

Play­ing in front of a packed house at the Queen's Park Oval, Port-of-Spain, Man-of-the-match Sim­mons hit 63 while Ramdin fin­ished on an un­beat­en even 50 as the home side, chas­ing 168 for vic­to­ry, got there with just over two overs to spare.

The vic­to­ry pushed TKR to sole lead­er­ship of the ta­ble with a max­i­mum six points from as many match­es. They moved ahead of the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (4 pts), who are play­ing the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents in the late match Sun­day

Sim­mons took the at­tack to the op­po­si­tion and had the crowd jump­ing and wav­ing from the start af­ter TKR re­strict­ed the vis­i­tors to 167 for five. He took the fight to the Zouks, slam­ming the ball to all parts of the park, as he amassed his first half-cen­tu­ry this sea­son, hit­ting five fours and five six­es off just 39 balls.

Sim­mons was fi­nal­ly out in the 12th over, stumped by An­dre Fletch­er off a wide de­liv­ery from Kavem Hodge, with TKR on 106 for three. Af­ter this on­slaught, how­ev­er, the game was as good as over.

Ramdin then mar­shalled the mid­dle or­der well to fin­ish with an even 38-ball half-cen­tu­ry, which fea­tured five fours and five six­es.

Skip­per Kieron Pol­lard was with him at the end on 26 not out hav­ing faced 20 balls and hit­ting two six­es and a four.

Ear­li­er, Rah­keem Corn­wall and An­dre Fletch­er were quick out the blocks and ham­mered the bowl­ing of TKR open­ing duo Khary Pierre and Muham­mad Has­nain. Corn­wall in par­tic­u­lar si­lenced the crowd with a mas­sive on­slaught. Af­ter three overs, the score was 41 with­out loss and even the tas­sa drum­mers were in shock, putting down their equip­ment tem­porar­i­ly.

Pol­lard had to ring the changes and brought in cham­pi­on spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine. And he de­liv­ered im­me­di­ate­ly, send­ing Corn­wall back to the hut leg be­fore off his sec­ond ball. The An­tiguan made 33 runs off 12 balls with two six­es and five fours.

Fletch­er then took over and con­tin­ued the ball beat­ing much to the cha­grin of the lo­cal fans who braved the 37-de­gree heat to be at the ground. Pol­lard was too wise for him though, as he brought him­self on, took pace off the ball and had the Grena­di­an caught at the deep mid-wick­et bound­ary for 26. Fletch­er faced 32 balls and struck a six and two fours.

Af­ter that, Na­jibul­lah Zad­ran scored a quick­fire 26 off 17 balls with two fours and two six­es. How­ev­er, hold­ing the in­nings to­geth­er so the oth­ers could bat around him was the left-hand­ed John Camp­bell, who made 43 runs off 42 balls with four fours and a six.

SUM­MARISED SCORES

ST LU­CIA ZOUKS 167-5 (John Camp­bell 43, Rakheem Corn­wall 33, An­dre Fletch­er 26, Na­jibul­lah Zad­ran 26, Jim­my Nee­sham 2/33, Sunil Nar­ine 1/23) v TKR 168-3 (Lendl Sim­mons 63, De­nesh Ramdin 50 no, Kieron Pol­lard 26 no, Kesrick Williams 1/31)

Re­sult: TKR won by 7 wk­ts

Man of the match: Lendl Sim­mons