BAS­SETERRE – Kyle May­ers turned in a sen­sa­tion­al per­for­mance with bat and ball, but it was not enough to pre­vent the St Kitts and Nevis Pa­tri­ots from falling to the St Lu­cia Kings in the Caribbean Pre­mier League in St Kitts on Sun­day.

Man-of-the-match May­ers blast­ed a bound­ary-laden 92 from 62 balls, and along with Evin Lewis, who scored the tour­na­ment’s first cen­tu­ry, pro­pelled the Pa­tri­ots to a chal­leng­ing to­tal of 201 for three from their 20 overs at Warn­er Park.

How­ev­er, Bhanu­ka Ra­japak­sa scored an un­beat­en 68 and Tim Seifert scored 64, as the Kings raced to 202 for five from 17.2 overs to be­gin their CPL cam­paign on a win­ning note.

It was a bril­liant come-from-be­hind vic­to­ry by the Kings, who seemed to be down and out at 24-4 in the fourth over af­ter May­ers and fast-bowler An­rich Nort­je struck ear­ly on.

John­son Charles scored 12 from 12 balls be­fore May­ers up­root­ed his leg stump to leave the score 14-1, and six runs lat­er May­ers found Ac­k­eem Au­guste’s lead­ing edge and was caught by Nort­je at third man for six.

With­out an­oth­er run added, May­ers took a bril­liant catch run­ning back from mid-on to send Kings’ cap­tain Faf du Plessis pack­ing for just two off the bowl­ing of Nort­je, who al­so clean bowled Ros­ton Chase for four to put the Pa­tri­ots in full com­mand.

But in a shock­ing turn of events, Ra­japak­sa and Seifert com­plete­ly wres­tled the ini­tia­tive from the Pa­tri­ots in a 103-run part­ner­ship in sev­en overs.

Seifert smashed left-arm spin­ner Tabraiz Sham­si for two con­sec­u­tive six­es in the sev­enth over that yield­ed 18 runs.

In the next over, the pair then tore left-arm spin­ner Ash­mead Nedd to shreds, dis­patch­ing him for four six­es and one four.

Seifert brought up his half-cen­tu­ry off the last ball of Nedd’s over by hit­ting him over the deep ex­tra cov­er bound­ary.

Odean Smith made the break­through for the Pa­tri­ots when he had Seifert caught at mid-off af­ter pum­melling six six­es and four bound­aries to leave the match even­ly poised at 127-5 af­ter 11 overs.

But the Kings would reap no fur­ther suc­cess the rest of the way, as Ra­japak­sa teamed up with Wiese in an un­bro­ken 75-run stand in just over six overs.

Wiese, who fin­ished on 34 not out, joined in on the ac­tion too, hit­ting Sham­si for three six­es in the 14th over.

He even­tu­al­ly end­ed the con­test in fit­ting style by send­ing Smith to the deep fine leg bound­ary, as the Kings romped to vic­to­ry with 16 balls re­main­ing in their CPL open­er.

Ear­li­er, Lewis and May­ers com­bined in a 199-run stand for the sec­ond wick­et to help the Pa­tri­ots post a for­mi­da­ble to­tal.

Lewis scored his sixth T20 hun­dred, an un­beat­en 100 from 54 balls with sev­en fours and nine six­es, while May­ers clob­bered six fours and sev­en six­es.

The two faced all but four balls of the Pa­tri­ots’ in­nings af­ter cap­tain An­dre Fletch­er was run out off the third ball of the match.

Lewis even­tu­al­ly brought up his cen­tu­ry in the last over of the in­nings, when he pushed Wiese down to long off for a sin­gle.

How­ev­er, May­ers was dis­missed eight runs short of his 100 when he was caught at deep cov­er with two balls left.

CMC

SCORES

ST KITTS & NEVIS PA­TRI­OTS 201-3 in 20 overs (Evin Lewis 100 not out, Kyle May­ers 92; David Wiese 2-29) vs ST LU­CIA KINGS 202-5 in 17.2 overs (Bhanu­ka Ra­japak­sa 68 not out, Tim Seifert 64, David Wiese 34 not out, John­son Charles 12; An­rich Nort­je 2-29, Kyle May­ers 2-38). St Lu­cia Kings won by five wick­ets.