Barbados Royals dominates St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, seals playoffs spot in CPL 2024

The Barbados Royals crushed the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots by 9 wickets in the 18th game of CPL 2024 at Kensington Oval.

It was a match that Barbados Royals won on the backing of a superb bowling performance from the 5/16 that Rahkeem Cornwall produced and a beautiful knock by Quinton de Kock, who remained unbeaten on 59.

Barbados Royals won the toss and chose to bowl first. It proved to be a prudent decision as they broke the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots for just 110 runs.

The Patriots were in trouble right from the beginning of the match after being put into bat. Naveen-ul-Haq struck early to dismiss Evin Lewis and Kyle Mayers.

Cornwall took over thereafter, conceding four overs with pivotal wickets of Andre Fletcher and Mikyle Louis. Facing a sensational spin attack, the Patriots lost all their wickets to be bowled over for just 110 runs in 19.1 overs, despite Joshua Da Silva and Anrich Nortje’s combined resistance of 39 runs.

Finally, the Royals easily went on to chase the target as they reached 113/1 off 11.2 overs. Quinton de Kock assisted the team in setting up a powerplay with his third fifty-plus score of the season by providing steady assists.

The cameo by 22* runs by Alick Athanaze came at a good juncture for Quinton de Kock, when he walked in and remained unbeaten to seal the win along with the latter, putting together an unbroken 56-run stand.

The win sealed qualification to the CPL playoffs for the Royals, justifying their dominance at the top of the table. Cornwall’s tremendous all-round performance and de Kock’s winning knock brought out how much strength the Royals banked on and how ready they were to go into the final activities of the tournament.

Conversely, for the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots, with another crushing defeat, the playoff hopes dwindled and left much work to be done for the rest of the games.

After the match, Barbados Royals skipper, Rovman Powell praised Rahkeem Cornwall for his excellent bowling and added that he was proud of his team which was all-around on their day and also let out “the guys are ready and determined as we head into the playoffs”.

On the other hand, Patriots’ skipper Andre Fletcher himself admitted that Royals outplayed his team in all aspects of the game. He said that his side needed to re-group and identify the flaws that caused the defeat and then change those flaws so that they could win the remaining games.

At this point, the team is well on its way toward the playoffs to vie for the title, with Cornwall and de Kock emerging as important figures in that pursuit of the CPL crown.