Vin­ode Mam­chan

The CPL se­mi-fi­nals have all been fi­nalised. The Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers will come up against the St Lu­cia Zouks on Thurs­day in the sec­ond play off in the 2016 Hero CPL T20 tour­na­ment in St Kitts.The Knight Rid­ers fin­ished fourth in the six-team ta­ble and will play the Zouks who fin­ished ahead of them in third spot.

The first play-off how­ev­er takes place to­mor­row, when the Ja­maica Tallawahs bat­tle the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors. The win­ner of this match will go straight to the fi­nals, while the los­er will play the win­ner of play off two on Fri­day al­so in St Kitts.

Tallawahs fin­ished sec­ond to the Ama­zon War­riors af­ter they were de­feat­ed for the sec­ond time by the Zouks on Sun­day night at Broward in Fort Laud­erdale.

Bat­ting, first the Zouks led by half cen­turies from John­son Charles and An­dre Fletch­er made 194 for three in their 20 overs. The Tallawahs lost the dan­ger­ous Chris for a 15-ball 30, and al­though oth­er bats­men got starts, they fell short at 177/6–los­ing by 17 runs.

As bats­men looked to push on the Zouks kept on strik­ing, and this crip­pled the run chase.Ear­li­er, Tallawahs won the toss and asked the Zouks to take first strike. Charles and Fletch­er, the two ball beat­ers, one from the He­len of the West In­dies and the oth­er from the Spice Isle ran out.

Soon white balls were fly­ing all around the park and fans were run­ning all over the place try­ing to try to win US$1000 prizes that came with one hand­ed spec­ta­tors' catch­es.

John­son took the lead as is usu­al­ly the case and slammed the Ja­maican bowlers all around the park. The two at­tacked near­ly every ball sent in their di­rec­tion. They had rus­tled up 104 runs by the 12th over, when Ja­maica fi­nal­ly got a re­prieve.

John­son time and time again go­ing down 'cow cor­ner', fell for 64 of 35 balls with nine fours and two six­es. This knock took him to the top of the ta­ble in terms of runs scored at the 2016 Hero CPL. He fin­ish­es the pre­lims with 410 runs at an av­er­age of 45.55 with four half cen­turies.

When John­son left, Fletch­er took over and the runs con­tin­ued to flow. The right han­der de­stroyed the Ja­maican bowl­ing at­tack and fre­quent­ly reached the bound­ary.

To­wards the end he got max­i­mum sup­port from Shane Wat­son, who scored 42 of 17 balls with five six­es. Against the Tallawahs in the last game he made 43 of 20 balls with five six­es as well. So in two match­es on the week­end, he would have scored 85 runs of 37 balls with 10 six­es and a four.

Fletch­er's in­nings end­ed at 70, that came in 54 balls with four fours and five six­es. This fol­lowed his ef­fort of 74 not out the day be­fore al­so against the Tallawahs.

SCORE­BOARD

Tallawahs vs Zouks

Zouks inns

A Fletch­er c Wal­ton b Pow­ell 70

J Charles c Wal­ton b Math­urin 64

M Hussey c Wal­ton b Pow­ell 8

S Wat­son not out 42

D Sam­my not out 6

Ex­tras 1lb, 2w, 2nb 5

To­tal for 3 wk­ts (20ovs) 194

Fall of wk­ts: 104, 133, 152.

Bowl­ing: I Wasim 4-0-30-0, S Al Hasan 3-0-21-0, K Williams 4-0-38-0, G Math­urin 4-0-40-1, R Pow­ell 4-0-45-2, T Allen 1-0-19-0.

Tallawahs Inns

C Wal­ton c Miller b Shilling­ford 15

C Gayle c Sam­my b John­son 30

K San­gakkara c Miller b Pope 24

R Pow­ell b Shilling­ford 28

A Rus­sell c El­liott b John­son 21

T Allen c Wat­son b Tay­lor 19

A Ross not out 23

S Al Hasan not out 9

Ex­tras 5b, 1lb, 2w 8

To­tal for 6 wk­ts (20ovs) 177

Fall of wk­ts: 43, 51, 75, 100, 142, 146.

Bowl­ing: D John­son 4-0-42-1, J Tay­lor 4-0-38-1, S Wat­son 4-0-26-1, S Shilling­ford 4-0-30-2, G El­liott 2-0-27-0, G Pope 2-0-8-1.

Re­sult: Zouks won by 17 runs.

LAT­EST STAND­INGS

Team P W L NR T PTS NRR

War­riors 10 7 3 0 0 14 +0.12

Tallawahs 10 6 3 1 0 13 +0.70

Zouks 10 6 4 0 0 10 +0.33

TKR 10 5 5 0 0 10 -0.06

Tri­dents 10 3 6 0 1 7 -0.26

Pa­tri­ots 10 2 8 0 0 4 -0.77