Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) finished their league campaign with an all-win record crushing the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots by nine wickets in the Caribbean Premier League encounter. While TKR topped the table with 10 wins from as many games, Guyana Amazon Warriors, St Lucia Zouks and Jamaica Tallawahs completed the semi-final line-up. In the first semi-final, TKR will take on fourth-placed Jamaica while Guayana and St Lucia will be pitted against each other in the other semi-final.
Playing without their premier match winner Sunil Narine, TKR bowled out the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots inside 19 overs for a paltry 77 and chased down their modest target inside 12 overs losing a single wicket.
In the other match of the day, St. Lucia Zouks beat Jamaica Tallawahs by 11 runs.
For TKR, skipper Kieron Pollard had Akeal Hosein and Sikandar Raza open the bowling. Chris Lynn did hit Hosein for a six but two balls later he failed to clear deep midwicket and after three overs, the Patriots were 13 for 1.
Bottled-up Evin Lewis faced 19 dot balls in his 24 ball innings and the Powerplay score 27 for 2 in six overs.
Ben Dunk too fell to a top-edge, Pravin Tambe taking an outstanding catch at short-third man off his fellow leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed.
The 48-year-old Tambe got a wicket of his own, trapping Joshua da Silva leg before and Fawad trapped the promoted Imran Khan in similar fashion for a duck.
At halfway the Patriots were 36/5, and every over had been bowled by spinners. Denesh Ramdin showed intent to hit smashing Fawad for a flat six but Patriots were losing wickets fast.
After 14 they were 64 for six. Fawad picked up two wickets in his last over. Patriots were 75/9 off 17 and they just passed the their lowest ever Hero CPL total of 75 in 2016.
Phillips soon ended the innings out of its misery and it was the first innings in CPL history where a team did not hit a single four.
Chasing 78 for a win, Knight Riders' Tion Webster hit two fours off Sheldon Cottrell in the first over of the chase.
With Narine and Lendl Simmons rested, Amir Jangoo got another game and he did not allow many dot balls and gave strike to the fluent Webster, who hit Imran for two more fours to take the Knight Riders to 27/0 off four overs and then 42/0 off the Powerplay.
Webster helped Knight Riders past opening stand of pair 50 for the first wicket all season but Jangoo fell to Emrit next ball to end the stand at 54.
Seifert joined Webster, and the Knight Riders coasted to 63/1 at halfway. Seifert finished the innings in style with a six.
Brief scores: Trinbago Knight Riders 78/1 (Webster 41*, Jangoo 19, Seifert 16*; Emrit 1/14) beat St Kitts & Nevis Patriots 77 all out (Ramdin 19, Emrit 15, Lewis 12; Fawad 4/21, Hosein 2/25, Phillip 1/3, Raza 1/6, Tambe 1/9, Ali Khan 1/10) by 9 wickets Player of the match: Fawad Ahmed
St Lucia Zouks 145/6 (Najibullah 35, Chase 32*, Cornwall 32; Mujeeb 2/28, Lamichhane 1/20, Edwards 1/24, Permaul 1/27) beat Jamaica Tallawahs 134/9 (Phillips 49, Kirton 25, Blackwood 25; Glenn 3/16, Zahir 3/25, Williams 2/27) by 11 runs Player of the match: Zahir Khan.