Open­er Rakheem Corn­wall fi­nal­ly came good again with a blis­ter­ing half-cen­tu­ry as the St Lu­cia Zouks of­fi­cial­ly knocked the Ja­maica Tallawahs out of this year’s Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League play­offs with a four-wick­et win at the Daren Sam­my Sta­di­um in Gros Islet, St Lu­cia, on Fri­day night.

Corn­wall blud­geoned a 24-ball 51, in­clud­ing four fours and five mas­sive max­i­mums, as the Zouks, chas­ing 166 for vic­to­ry af­ter re­strict­ing the vis­i­tors to 166-7, got there with five balls to spare.

How­ev­er, it was skip­per Daren Sam­my (16 not out) who had to hold his nerves to­wards the end with the tailen­ders to bring the Zouks a much-need­ed win, af­ter some of their mid­dle-or­der bats­men in­ex­plic­a­bly gave away their wick­ets to erode the fine foun­da­tion Corn­wall set for them.

With 19 runs need­ed off the last two overs, Sam­my hit medi­um pac­er Shamar Springer for two six­es, in­clud­ing one off a no-ball, in an 18-run penul­ti­mate over. Sam­my then dropped to his knees as Kr­ish­mar San­tok­ie blast­ed the first ball of the last over to the cov­er bound­ary to spark wilds cel­e­bra­tions from the Zouks fans.

The vic­to­ry helped push the Zouks to fourth place on the six-team ta­ble with sev­en points, just one be­hind third-placed St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots and two back of sec­ond-placed Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers. More im­por­tant­ly, with the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (14 pts) al­ready in the play­offs, the Zouks may now be in a po­si­tion to sneak in too if they can trav­el to Kens­ing­ton Oval and beat fifth-placed Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents (6 pts) in their last round-robin game on Sun­day.

The Tri­dents, how­ev­er, can go back on top the Zouks to­day if they beat the Pa­tri­ots in the first of a two-game home­s­tand Sat­ur­day at the Kens­ing­ton Oval.

The Tallawahs mean­while will now not see the play­off for the first time in their six-year run in the CPL.

But the Zouks would nev­er have been in a po­si­tion to plot their next move for­ward had Corn­wall and open­ing part­ner An­dre Fletch­er not set a sol­id foun­da­tion. They blazed away to a 49-run part­ner­ship in just four overs be­fore Fletch­er was the first to go, af­ter he drove at Za­hir Khan’s goo­gly, got an edge and was sharply caught by Tallawahs’ Chris Gayle at slip.

Corn­wall con­tin­ued his scor­ing on­slaught and brought up his mile­stone by despatch­ing Ra­maal Lewis for a straight bound­ary to raise his 50 off 24 balls. His in­nings in­clud­ed four fours and five max­i­mums. How­ev­er, he was out in next ball, caught by Chad­wick Wal­ton on the bound­ary to the cha­grin of the fans who want­ed to see more pow­er hit­ting.

Col­in de Grand­homme then cav­a­lier­ly de­posit­ed the first ball he saw from spin­ner Im­ran Khan in­to the hands of Liton Das at mid-wick­et as Zouks slumped to 79-3.

Hardus Viljoen joined Col­in In­gram but the two strug­gled to find easy runs. They had shared in a 38-run stand be­fore In­gram went for a fool­ish run af­ter push­ing spin­ner Lewis straight to Im­ran Khan at mid-off, on­ly to see him make a clean pick-up and knock over his stumps with a di­rect hit.

The Zouks were then 117-4 but still in a com­fort­able po­si­tion. This changed when Viljoen’s miss-timed pull shot was tak­en by Springer at deep fine leg and the Zouks were sud­den­ly in a tail­spin at 130-5.

But with Sam­my at the crease the home fans still had hope. And with the Tallawahs pres­sur­ing, Sam­my squeezed out 14 runs with Christo­pher Barn­well (13) and 25 with San­tok­ie to com­plete the job.

Ear­li­er, Gayle and Glenn Phillips seemed in the mood ear­ly on, with Gayle belt­ing a cou­ple fours and max­i­mums all around the ground. They got to 48 be­fore Viljoen got the break­through for the home side, cramp­ing Phillips (23) for room with a bounc­er which he gloved to wick­et-keep­er Fletch­er.

Dwayne Smith joined Gayle and was im­me­di­ate­ly in­to his stride, blast­ing just the sec­ond ball he saw off Viljoen over the mid-wick­et bound­ary for a max­i­mum to get off the mark.

Gayle and Smith put on 36 for the third wick­et be­fore Sam­my, who hadn’t bowled up to then this sea­son, got the prized scalp of Gayle as he holed out to Viljoen at long-off for 29, the Tallawahs slip­ping to 84-2.

Smith got an ea­ger part­ner in Liton Dass but the Zouks field­ers proved to be Smith’s best al­lies. Hav­ing been dropped on 14, he was al­so giv­en lives on 32 and 33 be­fore he brought up his half-cen­tu­ry, as the Zouks ap­par­ent­ly liked see­ing him bat more.

Smith hit Jeav­or Roy­al through back­ward point to bring up his half-cen­tu­ry off 30 balls with five fours and three six­es. He hit one more bound­ary be­fore medi­um pac­er Kesrick Williams de­liv­ered a dou­ble strike in the 17th over to slow the Tallawahs’ death overs mo­men­tum con­sid­er­ably.

Williams first re­moved Dass, caught and bowled off the third ball of his over for 21 to end a 56-run third-wick­et part­ner­ship, then got Smith to sky his slow­er ball to long-on where he was tak­en by Roy­al, who was re­spon­si­ble for drop­ping Smith ear­li­er on.

The Tallawahs were then 140-4 and the Zouks bowlers re­strict­ed them to just 25 more runs to give them­selves a chance to chase a rea­son­able to­tal.

Williams fin­ished with fig­ures of three for 24 and was vot­ed Man-of-the-match.

SUM­MARISED SCORED

JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS 165-7 (Dwayne Smith 58, Chris Gayle 29, Glenn Phillips 23, Liton Dass 21, Kesrick Williams 3/24, Kr­ish­mar San­tok­ie 2/31) v ST LU­CIA ZOUKS 169-6 (Rakheem Corn­wall 51, Hardus Viljoen 32, Dar­ren Sam­my 16*, Im­ran Khan 2/34, Dwayne Smith 1/8)

Re­sult: ST LU­CIA ZOUKS WN BY 4 WICK­ETS

Man-of-the-match: Kesrick Williams (Zouks)