Dale Steyn’s first Caribbean Premier League outing was a successful one as the Jamaica Tallawahs beat Faf du Plessis’ St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
Steyn, who turned 33 last week and enjoyed an excellent stint with Glamorgan in the Natwest T20 Blast taking 11 wickets from five matches, continued his good form with 1-21 from his four overs as the 2013 champions Tallawahs opened their account with a victory.
Patriots skipper Du Plessis has endured a tough start at the helm of the Patriots as they’ve now lost both their opening games. But both of them have been desperately close as they lost their opener on the last ball, before falling five runs short on Saturday night.
Tabraiz Shamsi was also on the losing end too, but had an excellent game on an individual level once again, picking up figures of 2-17 from his allotted spell. Incredibly, he’s conceded just two boundaries in the tournament so far.
The Tallawahs had the usual suspects to thank for their victory, as Chris Gayle blasted 51 off 36, before Andre Russell did the damage at the other end of the innings with 36 off 20.
It was a patchy batting effort from the Patriots. Lendl Simmons top scored with a run-a-ball 29, while Du Plessis scraped together 27 off 29 balls. Steyn conceded just four runs off the penultimate over and took the key wicket of Carlos Brathwaite to leave their opponents needing 30 off the final over. Devon Thomas came in and smacked 24 off that over, but it was too tall an ask to get them over the line.
In the later match, Hashim Amla‘s Trinbago Knight Riders lost to the Guyana Amazon Warriors by six wickets. The defending champions have now played three games in four days, losing two of them.
The openers had a torrid time as Brendon McCullum fell in the first ball of the innings, before Amla was bowled by the spin of Veerasammy Permaul for six, attempting to go big but not accounting for the turn. Colin Munro turned it around drastically, smacking his first ever T20 hundred off 65 balls.
Chasing 163, contributions from all the top-order batsmen helped the Amazon Warriors over the line with four balls remaining, with destroyer-in-chief being Australian export Chris Lynn, who hit eight sixes in his 43-ball 77.
Photo: CPL/Sportsfile
