CPL 2025: Kings move to top spot after thumping win over Patriots

Tabraiz Shamsi was tough to score off, and earned himself two opportunities to show off his familiar shoe-phone celebration.

Despite his 2-17, however, St Lucia Kings had a big chase on their hands in their CPL 2025 game against St Kitts and Nevis Patriots- 178.

That Kings got there with 18 balls and seven wickets in hand was down to their openers Tim Seifert and Johnson Charles. 115 runs between them, in just 62 balls, made the chase a canter.

Just five runs came off the first over of the chase, bowled by Kyle Mayers. Charles took off after that, against Naseem Shah, and kept going.

Kings got 13 off the second over, then 18 off the third, and 21 off the fifth, and finished the powerplay with 72 on the board. Seifert, who was slow to start with – having scored only a run-a-ball 15 by the fourth over – was now batting as quickly as Charles.

It was all looking rather ominous for Patriots.

Waqar Salamkheil got them the breakthrough – the wicket of Charles for a 17-ball 47 – in the seventh over, but with Ackeem Auguste, the hero of Kings’ previous match, for company, Seifert didn’t let the advantage slip.

Auguste and Seifert added 60 for the second wicket, with Auguste contributing 29 in 20 balls. Though Seifert fell in the 15th over for a 45-ball 68, his opening blast had left Kings with very few to get with a lot of time.

Earlier, after Patriots had been asked to bat by David Wiese at Kings’ home ground, the momentum they would have wanted never quite came. Theirs wasn’t a bad powerplay however, with Andre Fletcher especially showing enterprise as Patriots got to 57-1 after six overs.

The brakes were applied soon after that, as Shamsi got Fletcher to miscue an attempted heave out of the stadium only to sky the ball to Charles behind the stumps. For his efforts, Shamsi was later named the Player-of-the-Match.

The fightback came from Mohammad Rizwan, batting at No. 3, who scored 60 not out in 41 balls, and put together partnerships of 71 in 52 balls with Mayers (27 in 25) and an unbroken 37 in 20 balls with Jason Holder (21* in 14).

Still, neither Rizwan nor Mayers could score at the sort of rate Patriots would have wanted on a pitch that, as the outcome suggests, was good for scoring.

The win took Kings to the top of the table with eight points from six games, while Patriots are now in fifth position with four points from seven games. (ESPNcricinfo)