Gous hits 82, and Forde defends 13 in the last over as the Kings win by four
Andries Gous made 82 of Saint Lucia Kings’ 187 at Arnos Vale, and Matthew Forde held his nerve in the twentieth over as Antigua and Barbuda Falcons finished four runs short.
Aug 10, 2026
Saint Lucia Kings opened their Caribbean Premier League season at Arnos Vale on Sunday night, finishing overnight in India, and won a game the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons spent 15 overs looking likely to take. The Kings posted 187 for 8. The Falcons finished on 183 for 7. Four runs in it, and their most dangerous batter at the death watching most of the last over from the wrong end.
Gous made 82 of the 187
Andries Gous batted deep into the innings for 82 off 51 balls, six fours and six sixes, and the rest of the Kings’ card explains why 187 never felt like enough. Ackeem Auguste’s 18 off 20 was the next contribution of any length in the top order. Gous was named player of the match, which on a night this close was less a compliment than an accounting exercise.
Alzarri Joseph was the pick of the Falcons’ attack with 3 for 32 from his four overs. Nobody in a Falcons shirt bowled badly. They just could not get Gous out, and he went at better than a run and a half a ball while the rest of the order came and went around him.
Lewis made the chase look small
Rahkeem Cornwall started it by hitting 27 off 13, three of them sixes. Evin Lewis then made 48 off 24 with five sixes of his own, and Tim Robinson kept the rate honest with 30 off 20. For a stretch either side of the powerplay, the Falcons were the better side by a distance and 188 looked like a total someone had misfiled.
That was the phase the Kings had to survive rather than win. They survived it because two spinners refused to give the ball any width.
Chase and Theekshana bowled identical figures
Roston Chase took 2 for 18 from four overs. Maheesh Theekshana took 2 for 18 from four overs. Eight overs of spin for 36 runs and four wickets, in a match that produced 370 runs, is the sort of return that wins a T20 without ever making the highlights package.
The wickets counted, but the squeeze counted more. A chase that had been ahead of the rate fell behind it, and Jahmar Hamilton’s 10 off 20 in the middle of that stretch left Fabian Allen far too much to do. Hamilton was eventually run out, which was about the only way that innings was going to end.
Thirteen off the last, and the Kings gave it to their most expensive bowler
Matthew Forde finished with 1 for 47 from his four overs. Thirteen of those runs were needed by the Falcons when he was handed the twentieth, and his first three overs had already cost 39. He conceded eight.
Allen finished 28 not out off 17 and faced two deliveries in that over. That is the game in a line. The batter the Falcons needed on strike spent four balls of it standing at the other end, and by the time the strike came back the equation had gone.
Two days earlier the Falcons had won the season’s opening match at the same ground, beating Jamaica Kingsmen by two wickets off the final delivery after Rovman Powell fumbled a stop at long-on. Two matches at Arnos Vale, both settled in the last over, and the Falcons have been on either side of it.