GROS ISLET, St Lucia, CMC – Rain ruined what was shaping up to be an enthralling contest, forcing a washout and leaving St Lucia Zouks and Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel to share honours in game two of the Caribbean Premier League at the Beausejour Cricket Stadium here yesterday.
With Red Steel chasing 180 for victory, Jacques Kallis blasted a four and a six off the first five deliveries of the innings from speedster Shannon Gabriel, before the heavens opened to bring a premature end to the contest.
Red Steel had reached ten without loss.
Earlier, Zouks were propelled to 179 for six off their 20 overs by a top score of 57 from opener Andre Fletcher and England stroke-maker Kevin Pietersen, who made 42 off 26 balls.
Sent in, Zouks prospered through a 45-run stand opening stand off 28 balls between Fletcher and Johnson Charles who made 16 from nine balls.
Fletcher faced 49 balls and counted five fours and two sixes while Charles, the West Indies limited overs batsman, hit two fours and a six.
The right-handed Charles had taken two fours off the fifth over bowled by Kallis when he perished in search of another, flicking to Johan Botha at mid-wicket.
Fletcher then combined with Pietersen to add 70 for the second wicket in an entertaining stand which powered the Zouks innings.
Pietersen was the more aggressive of the two, smashing three fours and three sixes.
Both batsmen gathered a six each off Botha’s off-spin in the tenth over which cost 15 runs, and Fletcher reached his half-century off 40 balls in the next over with a single off left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn.
Pietersen swatted the next delivery over long on for six and smacked leg-spinner Samuel Badree over long-on for another maximum a couple overs later before falling in the same over, caught at mid-wicket by Australian Cameron Delport.
Fletcher followed in the next over, holing out to Botha at long-on off Kallis but South African Henry Davids then controlled the momentum of the lower order, cracking 27 off 16 balls with two fours and two sixes.
He put on 32 for the fourth wicket with captain Darren Sammy who struck 15 from nine balls and another 29 for the fifth wicket with Barbadian Kyle Mayers who hit 19 from 10 balls, before perishing off the penultimate delivery of the innings
