Forde took four wickets inside six overs, and Jamaica’s recovery to 169 still was not enough
Matthew Forde’s 5 for 23 had Jamaica Kingsmen 71 for 6 at Gros Islet. They rebuilt to 169, and then Kamil Pooran’s unbeaten 81 made sure it never mattered.
Aug 22, 2026
Matthew Forde had four wickets before the sixth over was done on Friday night in Gros Islet, and Jamaica Kingsmen spent the rest of their innings trying to make a total out of the wreckage. They got to 169 for 9, which was a repair job worth admiring. St Lucia Kings knocked it off with ten balls to spare.
Forde finished with 5 for 23 from his four overs and took the player-of-the-match award. Kamil Pooran, unbeaten on 81 from 49 balls, made sure the chase never turned into a story.
The first six overs
Roston Chase put Jamaica in at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, and Forde justified it almost immediately. Saim Ayub went for 1. Usman Khan had raced to 28 from 11 balls when he picked out Obus Pienaar in the fourth over, and Rovman Powell, Jamaica’s captain, edged the very next delivery to Maheesh Theekshana without scoring. Hassan Khan was lbw in the sixth.
By the ninth over Jamaica were 71 for 6, and four of those six were Forde’s. Two of them arrived off consecutive balls, and one of those was the captain, out for a golden duck to a delivery that had a wicket sitting in front of it.
Carty and Smith made it a match
Keacy Carty played the innings that kept Jamaica alive. He was there through the collapse and still there in the 20th over, finishing on 50 from 45 balls, which sounds sedate until you notice it was the anchor around which everyone else swung. Andre Russell hit 25 from 15. Odean Smith finished on 27 not out from 17, and his stand of 53 with Carty for the eighth wicket dragged the total from 112 to 165.
Forde came back for the first ball of the last over and had Carty caught by Chase. It was a fitting way to close a spell that had already decided the shape of the night.
Pooran did not let it get interesting
Chasing 170, the Kings lost Tim Seifert early and John Campbell and Johann Jeremiah in the space of five balls, and at 114 for 4 in the 14th over there was still a game there if Jamaica could find a wicket. They could not.
Pooran had already reached fifty from 26 balls with four fours and four sixes. He and Pienaar added 57 from 27 deliveries to finish it, Pienaar taking 34 from 14 with the freedom of a man who knew the equation had stopped being difficult. The Kings got home in 18.2 overs.
A win the Kings needed
The day before, the Kings had confirmed they would not be getting Noor Ahmad at all this season. The Afghanistan wristspinner, who was central to their title run in 2024, ran into visa problems getting to the Caribbean, and the Afghanistan Cricket Board then revoked his no-objection certificate. A squad built with a frontline spinner in it suddenly did not have one.
Their answer was to sign Tim Seifert as a batting replacement, and Seifert opened on Friday and made 12. So the Kings won this on seam and on Pooran, which was not the plan anyone drew up in July, and it took them to six points from a table where five teams had been level on four.