The Saint Lu­cia Kings con­firmed their place in the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) Play­offs fol­low­ing a com­fort­able sev­en wick­et vic­to­ry over the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in George­town on Thurs­day.

The Ama­zon War­riors won the toss and opt­ed to bat first and it was a de­ci­sion that was to back­fire as the in­nings nev­er re­al­ly got go­ing un­til the fi­nal five overs. De­spite some late pow­er hit­ting the Ama­zon War­riors could on­ly post 167/5 which ap­peared sub­par at first glance.

That proved to be cor­rect as the Saint Lu­cia Kings con­firmed that by chas­ing down the 168 to win with 15 balls re­main­ing.

Ear­li­er the Ama­zon War­riors suf­fered a slow start as Matthew Nan­du was run out for three in­side the Pow­er­Play and that set­back con­tributed to the War­riors on­ly reach­ing 35/1 at the end of the ini­tial six overs.

That se­date start was dif­fi­cult for the home side to over­come as the CPL’s top run scor­er, Saim Ayub, fell for 16 in the ninth over with the score on 50/2.

How­ev­er, Shai Hope and Azam Khan then Khan and Shim­ron Het­my­er helped re­build the in­nings be­fore late fire­works from Keemo Paul and Ro­mario Shep­herd en­sured 72 runs were added in the fi­nal five overs to set the Kings 168 to win.

That 168 proved to be well un­der par as the Kings made easy work of the chase.

Al­though John­son Charles fell for 1 in the sec­ond over that was to be as good as it got for the Ama­zon War­riors as Col­in Munro and Bhanu­ka Ra­japak­sa put on a dev­as­tat­ing part­ner­ship of 132 runs from 82 balls.

Ra­japak­sa holed out for 86 to deep mid-wick­et and Munro fol­lowed short­ly af­ter for 55, but the job was done. It al­lowed Sean Williams and Sikan­dar Raza to see the chase home with three overs re­main­ing.

The win en­sures the Kings qual­i­fy for the play­offs with one game to spare.

(Cour­tesy CPL)

Scores:

AMA­ZON WAR­RIORS 167 for five off 20 overs (Azam Khan 40, Shai Hope 38; Alzarri Joseph 2-31)

KINGS 170 for three off 17.3 overs (Bhanu­ka Ra­japak­sa 86, Col­in Munro 55)

St Lu­cia Kings won by sev­en wick­ets