Red Steel romp to nine-wicket win over Zouks

Sports Page — Evin Lewis and Kevin O’Brien flayed a hapless St Lucia Zouks bowling unit as the Trinidad & Tobago Red Steel recorded a nine-wicket win at Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain. The pair erased the CPL first-wicket partnership record set 24 hours earlier by Martin Guptill and Lendl Simmons of the Guyana Amazon Warriors by adding 129 at the start of the Red Steel chase.

The Red Steel reached the target of 137 with 32 balls to spare, just one ball short of equaling the fastest chase of CPL 2014 made by the Jamaica Tallawahs who were set 97 to win against the Antigua Hawksbills on July 17. Lewis and O’Brien came within eight runs of notching the first 10-wicket win in CPL history before Lewis fell for 77 in the 14th over to a catch in the deep off Shane Shillingford.

O’Brien brought up his own half-century two balls later and should have been dismissed with three needed to win when he was stumped giving Garey Mathurin the charge only to be called back to the crease when replays revealed the left-arm spinner had overstepped and a no ball was called. O’Brien sealed the match with a two off the free hit that followed and finished unbeaten on 55 off 44 balls.

Summarized scores: Trinidad & Tobago Red Steel 137 for 1 (Lewis 77, O’Brien 55*) beat St Lucia Zouks 136 for 9 (Sammy 46*, Badree 2-13) by nine wickets