Jamaica Tallawahs 147 for 6 (Phillips 79*, Emrit 3-32) beat St Kitts and Nevis Patriots 110 (Brathwaite 3-11) by 37 runs
Jamaica Tallawahs secured their third win of the CPL and moved ahead of the pack into third place thanks to Glenn Phillips' 79 not out and a polished bowling performance on a slow surface at Queen's Park Oval.
Rovman Powell opted to bat first, anticipating that the pitch would get slower as the game went on, and was vindicated by a 37-run win as his side defended 147 with complete ease. They had struggled to score in the first ten overs, inching to 53 for 1 at the halfway stage, but after spending 16 overs grinding between first and second gear, Phillips suddenly slipped into sixth and floored the gas on his way to his highest CPL score since the equivalent fixture last season.
Patriots' run chase never get going after Fidel Edwards cleaned up Chris Lynn in his first over, with Edwards, Veerasammy Permaul and Sandeep Lamichhane finishing with two wickets and Carlos Brathwaite grabbing three.
Fabulous Phillips
Phillips struggled badly early in the Tallawahs' innings, making 14 off the first 23 balls he faced before eventually hitting his first boundary at the end of the 11th over. He had little of the strike after a sedate Powerplay, camping on the back foot against the spinners throughout and scraping his way to 38 off 44 balls with 21 balls left in the innings. The nadir came in the 14th, when he played out a maiden against legspinner Imran Khan after Nick Kelly had shelled a sitter off the last ball of the previous over.
But he managed to launch a late-innings explosion against the Patriots' wayward death-bowling pair, Sheldon Cottrell and Rayad Emrit. First, he whacked Cottrell for three sixes in as many balls, all three of them in the 'V' down the ground. Emrit was the victim for his last two sixes, both over long-on, and was then heaved through midwicket for four even as Phillips collapsed with cramp.
He eventually ended unbeaten on 79 off 61 balls, scoring more runs from his final 17 balls (41) than his first 44 (38). It was the first time he had ended not out in his CPL career, and he revealed afterwards that he had been desperate to take the innings deep after failing to take Tallawahs over the line at any stage in the tournament to date.
Patriots' post-Powerplay problems
ESPNcricinfo's predictor gave the Patriots a 73.4% chance of winning after they had reached 39 for 1 after six overs of the chase, but they fell away in dramatic style in the following five overs. Chadwick Walton, standing in for Phillips for the first half of the chase after his cramp while batting, took a great catch off Permaul to dismiss Denesh Ramdin, before Ben Dunk chopped on to begin a wicket maiden for Brathwaite.
Kieran Powell was left stranded as he skipped down the wicket against Permaul at the start of the 10th over, Walton taking four or five seconds to dislodge the bails as he cruelly taunted the batsman, and Brathwaite's legcutter accounted for Emrit in the 11th. That meant they had lost four wickets for 14 runs in five overs after the fielding restrictions were lifted - before Lamichhane had bowled a single ball.
Lewis in limbo
Both teams had injury problems to cope with. Andre Russell missed a second game in a row due to his knee flare-up which will have Kolkata Knight Riders sweating, and had Phillips' cramp to contend with too.
Dunk went off the field in the second over for the Patriots with a thumb injury, though was soon back on and was fit to bat, but Evin Lewis hobbled off after the end of the innings nursing his groin. He had opened in 140 out of his 149 career T20 innings, but found himself sliding down to No. 7 today due to his tweak.
He signalled early on that he had few intentions of knocking the runs off in ones and twos, whacking a Lamichhane googly for a towering six over wide long-on and then slapping Edwards for another huge blow down the ground. But he fell to Lamichhane in the 16th over trying to repeat the trick, and took any lingering hopes the Patriots had with him.
