Piers Mor­gan was the un­like­ly hero as his side shocked a team cap­tained by West In­dies leg­end, Bri­an Lara, to win the Beefy Bash char­i­ty Twen­ty20 match as part of the Li­ma­col Caribbean Pre­mier League in St Kitts.

In an en­ter­tain­ing match, or­gan­ised by Sir Ian Both­am and played in front of a ca­pac­i­ty crowd at Warn­er Park, Mor­gan starred with bat and ball. In what must sure­ly be his great­est sport­ing achieve­ment, the broad­cast­er dis­missed dou­ble-world record hold­er Lara for a duck, caught at mid-wick­et. As if that wasn't enough, he then smashed the for­mer West In­dies cap­tain for a six and a four in the fi­nal over of his side's run chase to seal a thrilling vic­to­ry, by six wick­ets, with one ball to spare.

The teams were formed of a mix­ture of crick­et­ing leg­ends such as Lara, Graeme Swann, Dar­ren Gough, Ian Bish­op, Tom Moody, Roger Harp­er and Matthew May­nard, celebri­ties Piers Mor­gan and Mar­cus Mum­ford, lead singer of folk-rock gi­ants, Mum­ford and Sons, politi­cians, crick­et ad­min­is­tra­tors and lo­cal play­ers. Fans were treat­ed to spec­tac­u­lar en­ter­tain­ment and com­e­dy, with prac­ti­cal jok­ers Gough and Dan­ny Mor­ri­son play­ing up to the crowd.

For­mer Eng­land spin­ner, Swann, play­ing for the first time since re­tir­ing from all crick­et in the mid­dle of last year's Ash­es se­ries, per­formed well with both bat and ball for Team Lara, help­ing lo­cal bats­man Shane Jef­fers to add 100 for the sixth wick­et, and dry­ing up the runs when he bowled. Britain's Gram­my award win­ner, Mum­ford, wasn't so lucky, as his live­ly medi­um pace was dis­patched to all parts of the ground. At one point, he even re­sort­ed to plead­ing for mer­cy from Jef­fers, but to no avail.

For­mer Glam­or­gan and Eng­land bats­man, Matthew May­nard, coach of the St. Lu­cia Zouks in the CPL, rolled back the years for Team Mor­gan with some clean hit­ting, but when he was dis­missed with a few overs re­main­ing, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty fell to Mor­gan and Trinidad & To­ba­go Red Steel coach, Si­mon Hel­mot to help his team get near the tar­get. Lara brought him­self on to bowl for the fi­nal over, but Mor­gan was to be the star, seal­ing a Man of the Match per­for­mance with a bound­ary which sparked ju­bi­lant cel­e­bra­tions from the for­mer news­pa­per ed­i­tor.