St Lucia Kings 149 for 7 (Chase 85, Shepherd 3-21, Smith 3-22) beat Guyana Amazon Warriors 98 (Pooran 41, Smith 31*, Royal 3-19, Williams 2-7, McCoy 2-19) by 51 runs.
Roston Chase played a lone hand with bat for St Lucia Kings on a challenging surface, before Kings' bowlers combined to bully Guyana Amazon Warriors' top order and take the chase beyond them even before the powerplay had ended. Eventually, it was a 51-run win for Kings to climb off the bottom of the table, while they also offset the over-rate penalty from their last game that had cost them 0.05 points from their net run-rate.
Chase's 85 - the next highest scorer made 20 off 29 - at a strike rate of 170 was a blatant outlier in the game after Amazon Warriors had put Kings in at the toss.
Kings left Rahkeem Cornwall out, with Faf du Plessis opening alongside Andre Fletcher. If that was an experiment to play more prudent cricket on slow surfaces as opposed to Cornwall's pinch-hitting role, it wasn't evident; both Fletcher and du Plessis fell in the second over, trying to take on Romario Shepherd who ended up taking his third consecutive three-wicket haul of the tournament.
Chase managed to marry prudence and adventure, starting his scoring off with two consecutive sixes against Chandrapaul Hemraj in the third over. Chase's clarity in picking the right balls to attack came to the fore as he dominated a third-wicket stand with Mark Deyal, who struggled and scratched for his 20 in a 74-run stand.
A 51-run stand for the fourth wicket with Tim David (15 off 16) followed for Chase, who continued to appear like he was batting on a different surface. In all, he manager six fours and seven sixes before falling in the penultimate over as Kings had a mini collapse - Odeon Smith taking Deyal, David and Smit Patel - towards the end. An Alzarri Joseph cameo for 12 off 6 took them to 149 for 7 at the end.
Kings began their defence with Jeavor Royal's left-arm spin, but unlike Amazon Warriors, they went to pace for the rest of the powerplay. It began with Obed McCoy bowling an awkward short length to Mohammad Hafeez, getting him to fend to the keeper. Alzarri Joseph then completed tucked up Hemraj in the channel before getting him to hoick a bouncer out to deep square.
Shoaib Malik came in at No. 3 and was similarly tucked up by McCoy's length, steepness and angle. In the fourth over, he became the third wicket, fending to the keeper like Hafeez had. To end the powerplay, du Plessis went to Kesrick Williams, who got one to grip on Brandon King and had him chop one to short third man. Amazon Warriors were 16 for 4 at the end of the powerplay.
And it could have gotten a lot worse than that. Du Plessis kept Joseph on in a bid to separate Nicholas Pooran and Shimron Hetmyer, and it paid off almost immediately. Joseph created the chance with a sharp ball across the corridor, but Pooran's outside edge - headed straight for the keeper Andre Fletcher - went to ground.
Pooran took a six and a four off that very over and for a brief time, Amazon Warriors had some semblance of fluidity. From one end, anyway, as Hetmyer struggled to find any timing during his 21-ball stay for 9. Pooran took off, hitting five sixes during his 26-ball 41, but he couldn't get deep. After Hetmyer was run out, Royal trapped Shepherd in front to leave Amazon Warriors 65 for 6.
Chase then came back and hurried Pooran on the pull to have him caught at long-on, and the end was a mere formality from there on. Smith showed spark with the bat, hitting McCoy for two of his four sixes, but he was batting with No. 11 Imran Tahir for the most part and it wasn't destined to be a long innings.
