BAS­SETERRE, St Kitts—Pow­er­hous­es Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers wast­ed lit­tle time in lay­ing down their mark­er for this year’s Men’s Caribbean Pre­mier League ti­tle by re­pelling a strong chal­lenge from St Lu­cia Kings at Warn­er Park on Thurs­day.

Asked to chase 144 in the sec­ond game of the tour­na­ment, TKR over­hauled their tar­get with four balls to spare to get their cam­paign up and run­ning with a three-wick­et win.

Tion Web­ster top-scored with 58 from 45 de­liv­er­ies while New Zealan­der Tim Seifert chipped in with 34 from 39 balls, de­fy­ing an out­stand­ing spell of bowl­ing from West In­dies speed­ster Alzarri Joseph who fin­ished with four for 17 from four overs.

TKR looked to be coast­ing un­til Joseph struck three times in the penul­ti­mate over, re­mov­ing Seifert, cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard (17) and Prasan­na (1) in quick suc­ces­sion to make the con­test more tense at the end.

Ear­li­er, Kings had ral­lied to 143 for nine from their 20 overs af­ter be­ing sent in, Roshon Primus strik­ing 38 from 25 de­liv­er­ies and Mark Deyal carv­ing out 35 from 24 balls.

How­ev­er, Kings’ push for a big­ger to­tal was stalled by left-arm spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein who grabbed four for 13 from his four overs.

“We’ll take the two points. Yes, the last cou­ple overs, we would’ve want­ed to fin­ish it be­fore that but you have to take every­thing in­to the equa­tion,” Pol­lard said.

“The guys haven’t played T20 crick­et to­geth­er for a while so these things sort of hap­pen and it’s good that we’re on the win­ning side of this match.”

Cap­tain Ros­ton Chase, in his first com­pet­i­tive game in near­ly three months af­ter re­cov­er­ing from in­jury, rued the one over from off-spin­ner Mark Deyal – the ninth of the in­nings – which leaked 19 runs.

“I thought we didn’t get off as we would like in the bat­ting,” Chase said.

“I thought we were maybe 20, 25 runs short and prob­a­bly the over I gave Mark from this end prob­a­bly cost us the game as well so it was mis-read­ing on my part.”

Kings were 32 for two in the fifth over but re­cov­ered through a 44-run, third wick­et stand be­tween Deyal and Chase, who made 19 from 23 balls.

The left-hand­ed Deyal struck four fours and a cou­ple six­es be­fore be­com­ing one of three wick­ets to fall for one run in the 13th over sent down by Ho­sein.

Primus, who hit three fours and two six­es, then ral­lied the in­nings first in a 25-run, sixth wick­et stand with Ac­k­eem Au­guste (11) and then in a 35-run, sev­enth wick­et part­ner­ship with Alzarri Joseph (7).

In re­ply, TKR were car­ried by Web­ster, who blast­ed half-dozen fours and three six­es, in­spir­ing an 81-run, third wick­et stand with Seifert af­ter the in­nings tot­ter­ing at 19 for two in the fourth over.

Web­ster and An­dre Rus­sell (5) per­ished in suc­ces­sive overs to leave TKR on 107 for four in the 14th over but Seifert put on a fur­ther 33 with Pol­lard to steer the in­nings away from dan­ger.