TKR survive late Joseph fireworks to grab points

BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC):

Powerhouses Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) wasted little time in laying down their marker for this year’s Men’s Caribbean Premier League title by repelling a strong challenge from St Lucia Kings at Warner Park yesterday.

Asked to chase 144 in the second game of the tournament, TKR overhauled their target with four balls to spare to get their campaign up and running with a three-wicket win.

Tion Webster top-scored with 58 from 45 deliveries while New Zealander Tim Seifert chipped in with 34 from 39 balls, defying an outstanding spell of bowling from West Indies speedster Alzarri Joseph, who finished with four for 17 from four overs.

TKR looked to be coasting until Joseph struck three times in the penultimate over, removing Seifert, captain Kieron Pollard (17) and Prasanna (one) in quick succession to make the contest more tense at the end.

Earlier, Kings had rallied to 143 for nine from their 20 overs after being sent in, Roshon Primus striking 38 from 25 deliveries and Mark Deyal carving out 35 from 24 balls.

However, Kings’ push for a bigger total was stalled by left-arm spinner Akeal Hosein, who grabbed four for 13 from his four overs.

“We’ll take the two points. Yes, the last couple overs, we would’ve wanted to finish it before that but you have to take everything into the equation,” Pollard said.

Captain Roston Chase, in his first competitive game in nearly three months after recovering from injury, rued the one over from off-spinner Mark Deyal – the ninth of the innings – which leaked 19 runs.

“I thought we didn’t get off as we would like in the batting,” Chase said.

“I thought we were maybe 20, 25 runs short and probably the over I gave Mark from this end probably cost us the game as well so it was misreading on my part.”