New Delhi: Evin Lewis punctured the balloon of hopes for Barbados Tridents with a record breaking 32 ball 97-run whirlwind innings to take St Kitts and Nevis Patriots to an overwhelming 10-wicket victory in CPL.
In what could have been the fastest century of CPL and the second fastest in the history of T20 cricket, Lewis was denied by a cynical No ball from Kieron Pollard, that ended up being the winning runs for St Kitts.
Never the less, Lewis still had his fair share of records to boast off at the end of the day – the fastest fifty of CPL 2017 (off 19 balls), the highest CPL powerplay score of 105 being the noted ones.
In his hurricane innings of 97, Lewis never let his strike rate drop below 200. It is another story that he ended his innings with a strike rate of 303.12.
The left-hander, started off his innings with a six off Wayne Parnell and went to hit 10 more before they reached the paltry target of 129 runs in just 7 overs.
Even more astonishing is the fact that Lewis allowed his opening partner Chrish Gayle, who is normally the owner of this sort of destruction to face only 14 deliveries in the innings.
The plight of the Barbados bowlers was evident as their most economical bowler, if one can call him that was Wahab Riaz, who gave 13 runs per over in his 2 over spell.
Earlier, Barbados were stopped on their tracks by the West Indies T20 captain Carlos Brathwaite, who took 4 for 15 to restrict them to just 128 in a must-win game.
Now Barbados Tridents’ hopes of making the play-offs are all but over.