St Kitts and Nevis Patriots southpaws Evin Lewis and Kyle Mayers stitched a record partnership of 199 against St Lucia Kings on Sunday (September 1).
SKNP were put into bat in Match 5 of CPL 2024 by St Lucia Kings. They lost skipper Andre Fletcher off the third ball of the innings, run out by Ackeem Auguste. The dismissal brought Kyle Mayers to the crease to join hands with Evin Lewis.
The pair then took the attack to the Kings' bowlers, hitting at least one boundary every over till the eighth over. This also included a stretch of three back-to-back sixes by Lewis off Mikkel Govia. He then brought up his fifty with another six, this time off Alzarri Joseph in the tenth over, off just 24 deliveries.
Mayers played second fiddle as Lewis went from strength to strength. Mayers brought up his fifty four overs later, reaching the landmark off the 37th delivery he faced.
A short rain break threatened to deny both batters their individual hundreds, but play resumed soon. as Lewis completed his century on the third ball of the 20th over. Mayers, unfortunately, couldn't do the same and was dismissed next ball for 92 off 62 balls.
Evin Lewis send three sixes flying through the night skies in just one over. 🤯 #CPL24 #SKNPvSLK #CricketPlayedLouder #BiggestPartyInSport #CaribbeanAirlines @iflycaribbean pic.twitter.com/BW1axro5Z7
— CPL T20 (@CPL) September 1, 2024
Lewis's sixth T20 hundred and a record partnership
The pair added 199 runs for the second wicket, the highest-ever partnership recorded for any wicket in CPL history, going past the 162-run second-wicket partnership between Chris Gayle and Chadwick Walton for Jamaica Tallawahs in 2019.
What was more absurd about the partnership was that it came in a team total of 201, constituting 99 per cent of the final team score. Three other SKNP batters faced at least one delivery in the innings apart from Lewis and Mayers, and they combined to score just one run, with eight coming in the form of extras.
Across all T20 cricket, this is now the joint 23rd-highest partnership for any wicket. There have been 22 double-century partnerships so far. For the second wicket, the Lewis-Mayers stand is now the joint sixth-highest partnership in all T20. The highest second-wicket partnership record belongs to AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli, who stitched together 229 in a team total of 248 for RCB in 2016.
Lewis made his sixth T20 hundred, equalling Suryakumar Yadav, Shane Watson, Shubman Gill, Jason Roy, KL Rahul, Alex Hales, Martin Guptill, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, and Quinton de Kock. Among West Indians, he is now only behind Chris Gayle in the all-time T20 century-makers list.
Despite the fireworks by the left-handed duo, SKNP weren't able to finish on the right side of the result as St Lucia Kings chased down the target with five wickets and 16 deliveries to spare.
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