Barbados Royals faced off St Kitts & Nevis Patriots side in the third match of the Caribbean Premier League early today morning. Due to rain, the match was reduced to 17 overs.
Barbados Royals won the toss and decided to bowl first. Andre Fletcher and Joshua Da Silva came on to open the innings for St Kitts and there were going strong as both the openers made an opening partnership of 57 runs.
Andre Fletcher scored a brilliant 81 runs from 55 balls with one six and eleven fours, Joshua Da Silva on the other side was dismissed for 19 runs. After the departure of the opening batsman, the wickets were falling at regular intervals.
Holder and Ramon Simmonds picked up two wickets each in their spell helping the Royals to restrict St Kitts to 149/8 in 17 overs.
In reply, the Royals came on to bat with openers Rahkeem Cornwall and Kyle Mayers who gave an amazing start with 64 run opening partnership. Rahkeem scored 39 runs from 25 balls with three fours and three sixes, on the other hand, Kyle’s brilliant 73 runs from 46 balls with 4 sixes and six fours gave the Royals side the dream start and eventually win the match by 7 wickets with 10 balls to spare. Corbin Bosch won the man of the match award.
St Kitts bowlers tried to stop the Royals from scoring but failed to do so, Dwayne Bravo managed to pick two wickets in his four-over spell. St Kitts the defending champions have lost two games in a row now, they will have to do something about the problems, or else this season could get even worse in the future.
After winning the match when asked about the performance of the team, skipper David Miller stated that “Feels nice. I thought the bowlers bowled really well. Pulled it back well at the end. Batting from the openers, especially Mayers was really impressive. It is a long tournament, games come thick and fast. Starting well is important, couldn’t have asked for anything better. Yes, I’m (enjoying captaincy), quite a good bunch of guys around me.”
