CPL 2020: Narine Stars In Knight Riders Win, Santner-Rashid Combine Well To Hand Tridents Victory

While Knight Riders put an end to the 11-match winning run of Guyana Amazon Warriors', securing a four wickets win over them in a rain hit match reduced to 17 overs game, Tridents edged St. Kitts & Nevis Patriot by six runs at the Brian Lara Academy at Tarouba on Tuesday.

It was a day for the spinners on the green turf in the scenic Caribbean Islands as stellar all-round performances by Sunil Narine for Trinbago Knight Riders, followed by Rashid Khan and Mitchell Santner for Barbados Tridents helped their teams get off to winning starts on the opening day of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2020. While Knight Riders put an end to the 11-match winning run of Guyana Amazon Warriors', securing a four wickets win over them in a rain hit match reduced to 17 overs game, Tridents edged St. Kitts & Nevis Patriot by six runs at the Brian Lara Academy at Tarouba on Tuesday. In the opening match, opener Sunil Narine stole the show in T&T's win producing the fireworks up the order with a quickfire 50 off just 28 balls laced with four sixes and two fours, after returning with impressive figures of two for 19 in his four overs. The Knight Riders required the late flourish from Bravo brothers, Darren (30) and Dwayne (six not out), to help them edge the Warriors with two balls to spare. Meanwhile, hard hitting batsman Shimron Hetmyer scored a whirlwind 63 not out off just 44 balls to help the Guyana Warriors post 144 for 5. Brief Scores: Trinbago Knight Riders 147/6 (Narine 50, Darren Bravo 30; Naveen 2/21) beat Guyana Amazon Warriors 144/5 (Hetmyer 63*, Taylor 33; Narine 2/19) by four wickets In the second match of the day, it was again the spinners who proved their mettle as Mitchel Santner (20 and 2 for 18) and Rashid Khan (26 and 2 for 27) all-round heroics helped Barbados Tridents get their campaign off to a winning start by beating St Kitts & Nevis Patriots in their title defense. Tridents put up a competitive 153/9 on the board in their stipulated 20 overs and then won the game by restricting Patriots to 147/5 Brief scores: Barbados Tridents 153/9 (Holder 38, Mayers 37; Emrit 2/16) beat St Kitts & Nevis Patriots 147/5 (Da Silva 41*, Dunk 34; Santner 2/18, Rashid 2/27) by 6 runs.