SUN­RISE/FL - USA: Guyanese Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj was in su­perb all-round form as he took Som­er­set Cav­a­liers to a crush­ing nine-wick­et vic­to­ry over Samp Army in their open­ing match of the US Open T20 tour­na­ment at the Cen­tral Broward Re­gion­al Park in Fort Laud­erdale, USA on Tues­day night.

First­ly he turned in a miser­ly spell of 2/10 as Samp Army bat­ting first made 133/4 off their 20 overs on a slow track. Ku­nal See­gal bat­ted well get­ting 61, while San­jay Stan­ley made 59. They found the go­ing touch as stroke­play was not easy but they fought well to give their team a fight­ing score.

See­gal's 61 came off 54 balls and in­clud­ed two six­es and four fours, while Stan­ley made 59 off 50 balls with two six­es and four fours as well.

When Som­er­set re­spond­ed Ken­nar Lewis and Hem­raj bat­ted as if they were bat­ting on a dif­fer­ent track as they ham­mered the hap­less bowl­ing at­tack to all parts of the pic­turesque venue. They post­ed a hur­ri­cane 94 runs in on­ly 5.5 overs be­fore Lewis held out for 61 off 23 balls with five six­es and sev­en fours.

When the vic­to­ry was for­malised off on­ly 9.5 overs, Hem­raj was there with an un­beat­en 50 off 25 balls, hav­ing struck five six­es and three fours.

TUES­DAY'S SCORES

Samp Army 133/4 (20) (Ku­nal See­gal 61, San­jay Stan­ley 59, Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj 2/10) vs Som­er­set Cav­il­liers 136/1 (9.5)(Ken­nar Lewis 61, Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj 50no, Aaron Jones 15no) - Som­er­set won by 9 wk­ts.

22 Yards 111 all out (18.5) (Shur­fane Ruther­ford 33, Ahad Malek 21, Asad Ali 19, Wayne Par­nell 3/29, Khary Pierre 2/19, Akeal Ho­sein 2/19) vs At­lanta Param Veers 114/4 ( (Stephen Tay­lor 46no, Chris Gayle 39, Dane Piedt 2/19) - At­lanta Param Veers won by 6 wk­ts.

Af­gan Zwanan 133/9 (20) (Zia Shaz­ard 39, Syed Ab­dul­lah 23, Cody Chet­ty 19, Salman Nazar 3/26, Mark Deyal 2/16, Ju­naid Sid­dique 2/25) vs Bamp­ton Pac­ers 135/6 (18.5) (Ran­veer Singh 31, Asad Zai­di 27, Rons­ford Beat­on 2/27) - Bramp­ton Pac­ers won by 4 wk­ts.