The Guyana Ama­zon War­riors con­tin­ued to match the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers stride for stride in this year’s Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League on Sat­ur­day night.

Less than 24 hours af­ter TKR rout­ed the Ja­maica Tallawahs by 41 runs in Kingston s to go top of the six-team ta­ble with eight points, the War­riors crushed the St Kitts Nevis Pa­tri­ots at Warn­er Park by sev­en wick­ets to re­turn to the top of the ta­ble on a bet­ter net run rate.

Af­ter leg-spin­ners Qais Ah­mad, Im­ran Tahir and off-spin­ner Chris Green com­plete­ly bam­boo­zled the home team’s bats­men to skit­tle them out for 121 in­side 20 overs, open­er Bran­don King then blast­ed a rapid 47 to set the foun­da­tion the War­riors need­ed to cruise to their fourth straight vic­to­ry.

With a small to­tal on the board, King seemed to have plans for af­ter the match, as he hit sev­en fours, three six­es and shared in a 64-run open­ing part­ner­ship with Chan­dra­pul Hem­raj which knocked the fight out of the Pa­tri­ots and their fans.

King was par­tic­u­lar­ly se­vere on pac­er Shel­don Cot­trell, who was back from in­jury, hit­ting him for one max­i­mum and three fours in just the third over of the in­nings. He al­so belt­ed left-arm or­tho­dox spin­ner Fabi­an Allen for two max­i­mums and a four in the first over he saw from him, just the fifth of the in­nings, as Pa­tri­ots skip­per Car­los Brath­waite tried des­per­ate­ly to break the part­ner­ship.

King’s in­nings fi­nal­ly came to an end when he flicked Mo­ham­mad Hafeez be­hind square and took off for a run, on­ly to see Hem­raj send him back af­ter Ja­son Mo­hammed col­lect­ed and sent a re­turn to wick­et-keep­er De­von Thomas to ex­e­cute a run out. Pa­tri­ots may have been dream­ing of a come­back when the in-form Shim­ron Het­my­er was out eight balls lat­er, hit­ting Hafeez straight down long-off Lau­rie Evans’ throat to be dis­missed for one with the score on on­ly 66-2.

But the War­riors would not be de­nied on this night and Hem­raj added 20 more runs with skip­per Shoaib Ma­lik be­fore he was out for a well-played 22, to en­sure there would be no fight­back. Nicholas Pooran (18 no) was with Ma­lik at the close.

Ear­li­er, Green, Ah­mad and Tahir mes­merised the bats­men, tak­ing sev­en wick­ets be­tween them­selves, with Tahir al­so run­ning out the in-form Glenn Phillips to sig­nal the home side’s fate on the night.

Al­ready with­out the hard-hit­ting Evin Lewis through in­jury in the warm-ups just be­fore the match, Pa­tri­ots were set on the back foot ear­ly on when off-break bowler Green got the dan­ger­ous De­von Thomas for just one. Hav­ing been pegged down in the first over from Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj, Thomas tried to break the shack­les with a flick off the back foot from the first ball he saw from Green and lost his off stump with the score on just one.

Paul, Hem­raj and Tahir then com­bined to sti­fle Pa­tri­ots skip­per Mo­ham­mad Hafeez and Lau­rie Evans in the first four pow­er­play overs. Need­less, to say, when pac­er Keemo Paul was brought in­to the ac­tion in the sixth over, the Pa­tri­ots bats­men tried to up the ante.

Off the last ball of Paul’s first over, how­ev­er, Hafeez flicked straight to the vet­er­an Tahir at short fine leg. Evans called Hafeez through for a quick sin­gle but Tahir, 45, picked up clean­ly, ri­fled the ball at the stumps and hit it dead on one bounce off the turf as Pa­tri­ots slipped to 36 for two. Evans, who had pro­vid­ed im­pe­tus at the top when the Pa­tri­ots need­ed it in pre­vi­ous match­es, hit 26 in­clud­ing four fours.

The sit­u­a­tion got even worse in the eighth over when Ah­mad drew Hafeez (14) down the wick­et for a loft­ed dri­ve which was caught at long-off by Het­my­er, the Pa­tri­ots slump­ing to 47 for three.

Tahir then blew the match wide open with a dou­ble strike in the ninth over. First, he got Ja­son Mo­hammed (4) to play down the wrong line and trapped him plumb in front his wick­et with his first de­liv­ery. Af­ter the in­com­ing Do­minic Drakes was dropped by Het­my­er on duck, Tahir got his man two balls lat­er when he skied a goo­gly and was tak­en by Ah­mad com­ing in from mid­wick­et as Pa­tri­ots col­lapsed to 53 for five.

Af­ter that, Pa­tri­ots were in sur­vival mode un­til the 16th over when Ah­mad pro­duced a dou­ble strike of his own. He got Shamarh Brooks (34) caught by Het­my­er at long-off for off the first ball and off his fourth he got the dan­ger­ous Fabi­an Allen (16) caught by Paul at back square-leg af­ter he mist­imed a sweep.

Pa­tri­ots limped to 107 for sev­en at the end of that over and were dis­missed 13 runs lat­er as Paul got in­to the act with the wick­ets of Pa­tri­ots skip­per Car­los Brath­waite (3) and Shel­don Cot­trell, a bril­liant caught and bowled ef­fort, in the penul­ti­mate over

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

ST KITTS NEVIS PA­TRI­OTS 121 all out (Lau­rie Evans 26, Shamarh Brooks 36, Qais Ah­mad 3/28, Im­ran Tahir 2/17, Chris Green 2/28, Keemo Paul 2/24) v GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 122-3 (Bran­don King 49, Shoaib Ma­lik 24 no, Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj 22, Rayad Em­rit 1/15)

Re­sult: GUYANA AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS WON BY 7 WICK­ETS

Man-of-the-Match: Qais Ah­mad