BAS­SET­TERRE - A high-scor­ing thriller saw Saint Lu­cia Kings reach the fi­nal of the 2021 Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) and elim­i­nate de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) at Warn­er Park in St Kitts and Nevis on Tues­day.

The Saint Lu­cia Kings won the toss and chose to bat. Mark Deyal got the side off to a fly­ing start and they main­tained a high in­ten­si­ty through­out the in­nings, as Tim David and David Wiese com­bined to cause car­nage in the lat­ter overs, tak­ing the side to a mam­moth 205/4 af­ter their 20 overs.

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers got off to a fast start in re­sponse but slow­ly un­rav­elled amidst a grow­ing run rate, as David Wiese took his sec­ond five wick­et haul of this year’s Hero CPL to end their ti­tle de­fence as they fin­ished on 184 all out .

Saint Lu­cia Kings had got off to a trou­ble­some start as Rah­keem Corn­wall was caught out in the first over. Yet Deyal would come in and play with an at­tack­ing in­tent that saw him launch eleven bound­aries and reach his high­est ever T20 score, 78 off just 44 balls. Ros­ton Chase would aid the side with a valu­able knock, be­fore David and Wiese came in and formed a de­struc­tive part­ner­ship: 75 runs com­ing off the last 34 balls. De­spite the high score, Sunil Nar­ine was ex­cel­lent with the ball for the Knight Rid­ers, con­ced­ing a pal­try twelve runs from his four overs.

TKR­re­spond­ed with a strong start, scor­ing 66 runs in the Pow­er­play for just the loss of one wick­et, as Nar­ine and Col­in Munro kept the re­quired run rate with­in reach. How­ev­er, Wiese starred with the ball as he took both of their wick­ets, adding pres­sure to the chase. De­spite quick-fire cameos from Dar­ren Bra­vo and cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard, it was not enough as the cham­pi­ons fal­tered un­der dis­ci­plined bowl­ing from Alzarri Joseph and Wa­hab Ri­az. Wiese then capped off a su­perb game by tak­ing late wick­ets to reach his five wick­et haul.

Saint Lu­cia Kings reached their sec­ond suc­ces­sive Hero CPL fi­nal with the win and the re­sult means we will have a new cham­pi­on this year.

Brief scores:

KINGS 205/4 (20 overs) (Mark Deyal 78, Tim David 38 not out, Ros­ton Chase 36, David Wiese 34 not out) vs TKR 184 (19.3 overs) (Sunil Nar­ine 30, De­nesh Ramdin 29, Col­in Munro 28, Kieron Pol­lard 26, Dar­ren Bra­vo 25; David Wiese 5-39).

Re­sults: St Lu­cia Kings won by 21 runs, ad­vance to fi­nal

Toss: St Lu­cia Kings, elect­ed to bat first.

Play­er Of The Match: David Wiese

Um­pires: Deighton But­ler, Leslie Reifer

TV Um­pire: Za­hid Bas­sarath