St Kitts and Nevis Patriots and Guyana Amazon Warriors played out a high-scoring match in the Caribbean Premier League on Wednesday, matching a T20 record in the process.
In the seventh match of CPL 2024, the Warriors won the toss and chose to bat first at Warner Park in St Kitts. They made a relatively good start, with 53-1 in the powerplay, but that did not indicate the level of destruction that was about to follow.
After Shai Hope was dismissed off the first ball of the seventh over, Shimron Hetmyer joined Rahmanullah Gurbaz. He hit the third ball he faced, from Veerasammy Permaul, over long on for six to get his innings underway. Gurbaz also joined in, hitting Ryan John and Odean Smith for two sixes each in consecutive overs.
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None of the Patriots bowlers was spared as the pair continued to clear the boundary with frightening ease until Gurbaz perished on 169-3 after 13.4 overs. Hetmyer carried on with Keemo Paul. Dwaine Pretorius and Raymon Reifer chipped in with a few big hits of their own.
Hetmyer eventually fell for a swashbuckling 91, off just 39 balls. His knock contained 11 sixes, the most in a men's T20 innings without a single boundary four. The previous highest was nine, hit by Riki Wessels for Nottinghamshire against Worcestershire in 2018.
The Warriors ended up hitting a total of 23 sixes in their innings, the joint third-highest ever in a men's T20 match and the highest-ever in the Caribbean Premier League. Their final score of 266-7 was one run short of the CPL record of 267-2, scored by Trinbago Knight Riders against Jamaica Tallawahs in 2019.
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42 sixes in a match: Patriots, Warriors equal T20 record
With a record chase in front of them, the Patriots did not back down. Evin Lewis fell early, but Andre Fletcher, Kyle Mayers and Sherfane Rutherford put on their own display of big hitting to register a Powerplay score of 94-2.
Their momentum was halted as Rutherford fell for a 12-ball 34 in the ninth over, before Imran Tahir bowled a double-wicket maiden in the 10th over, getting rid of Josh Clarkson and Odean Smith. Fletcher carried on until the 13th over, when he was dismissed for 81 off just 33 balls. Thereafter, a few big hits came from the middle-order but wickets at regular intervals meant they eventually fell 40 runs short.
With 19 sixes in their innings, the Patriots took the match total to 42, matching the record number for a men's T20 match. The other match which saw this many was Kolkata Knight Riders vs Punjab Kings in the 2024 IPL, which saw the latter chase down 262 at Eden Gardens.
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