St Lucia Kings were at home in Gros Islet, their captain Roston Chase won the toss and took first strike, but then they “left about 30 to 35 runs out there”, as Chase said later, looking back at the five-wicket defeat to St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in their CPL 2026 fixture.

The reason they fell short of the target they would have liked to set Patriots was the Jason Holder–Saurabh Netravalkar combination, the seamers picking up six wickets between them for just 52 runs, which gave the batters just 156 to chase. Andre Fletcher kept things steady, scoring a patient 41-ball 48 not out from the top, as Patriots got home with 14 balls left.

The powerplay didn’t go badly for Kings despite the loss of Andries Gous and Ackeem Auguste, Netravalkar accounting for both, as Kamil Pooran and Jewel Andrew took them to 57. The two of them collaborated for 82 runs in 51 balls for the third wicket, and after a direct hit from Wanindu Hasaranga ended Pooran’s stay for a 30-ball 54, Andrew and Charith Asalanka added 39 more, but by then the scoring rate had slowed down: their partnership took up 25 balls.

Pressure told, and Holder rubbed it in, sending back Asalanka and Andrew, who made 58 in 42 balls, in the 16th over, and there was no real resistance from the lower order: just 22 runs came in the last five overs.

There was very little to separate Kings and Patriots when it came to the powerplay output, 57 for 2 for Kings vs 59 for 2 for Patriots, but Patriots had, as Fletcher put it, “a manageable total to chase”. Johnson Charles did the early running, smashing a four and two sixes in a five-ball 16, but he was the first to fall, and Kyle Mayers, after a 34-run stand with Fletcher where he contributed 32 in 16 balls, was also gone by the end of the powerplay.

But the asking rate was hardly an issue because of the modest target, and all Fletcher and the others needed to do was bat deep. They did, and at no stage did they need to hurry.

So much so that Fletcher could bat from the first ball of the innings to the last – the 18th, as it turned out – without ever hitting a higher gear. His 48 not out, which earned him the Player-of-the-Match award, took 41 balls and included just three fours and six. And he got support from Kevin Wickham (19 in 20), Holder (10 in nine) and Dasun Shanaka (12 in nine) before Hasaranga hooked Matthew Forde for a six to complete the win.

The win was Patriots’ first in the competition after they had lost their opener, while Kings, too, have one win and one loss from two outings.