Seifert made 105 not out, and Trinbago lost three wickets in four balls at 70 for none

Trinbago Knight Riders were 70 without loss in the eighth over at the Queen’s Park Oval, chasing 212, and Colin Munro and Sunil Narine had made the target look ordinary. Four balls later they were 70 for three. All three wickets went to Roston Chase, in the same over.

St Lucia Kings won by 36 runs overnight, and the two points put them back on top of the Caribbean Premier League table.

Seifert batted through the whole innings

Tim Seifert opened and was still there at the end of the 20th over, unbeaten on 105 from 61 balls with eight fours and five sixes. Nobody else in the Kings order got past 33.

He was 50 off 28, and for most of the first half of the innings he was the one doing the scoring rather than the passenger. Kamil Pooran made 25 of their opening stand of 60 while Seifert made 31. John Campbell made 27 of the second-wicket stand of 75 while Seifert made 47.

That flipped when Charith Asalanka arrived. The third-wicket stand was worth 51, and this time Asalanka took 33 of them off 21 balls, with three sixes, while Seifert contributed 15 and let him get on with it. Seifert reached his hundred off 58 balls, near the end.

Pooran was caught by Abdul-Raheem Toppin off Usman Tariq for 25 from 17 with five fours in it. Campbell hit five fours in 27 from 17 before Narine had him lbw. Asalanka went for 33, caught by Munro off Pollard. The Kings finished on 211 for four, only the second total above 200 in this CPL season.

Trinbago’s bowling split neatly in two. Narine conceded 27 in his four overs and Pollard 24 in three, which in a game like this is a decent night’s work. Dominic Drakes went for 53 in three overs and Toppin, on his T20 debut, for 33 in two.

Three wickets in four balls, all to the captain

The chase began better than the target deserved. Munro and Narine put on 70 inside eight overs, Narine hitting three sixes in 14 balls, and Trinbago came out of the powerplay 56 without loss.

Then Chase came on. Narine went first, caught by Joshua Bishop. One ball later Matthew Breetzke edged his only delivery straight back to the bowler. Two balls after that Nicholas Pooran, Trinbago’s captain, was caught by Bishop for a two-ball duck. Three wickets had gone down and the score had not moved off 70.

Chase finished with three for 24 from his four overs. He captains the Kings, he bowls right-arm off spin, and he had just taken the game apart in four deliveries.

Munro held on to 48 before Bishop had him caught by Chase, and at 76 for four the chase was done.

Pollard made it look possible for 26 balls

Kieron Pollard is 39 and still capable of this. He walked in with the game gone and hit 65 from 26 balls, six fours and five sixes, reaching fifty off 21. For a while the required rate stopped climbing.

The fifth-wicket stand was worth 71, and it was mostly Pollard: he made 65 of it, with Tromp playing the support role. Matthew Forde caught and bowled Pollard in the 17th over with Trinbago on 147, which settled it. They finished on 175 for six.

ESPNcricinfo’s MVP rating for the match went to Pollard, which is what happens when the best individual innings on the field belongs to the losing side. Player of the match, the award that comes with the win, went to Seifert.

The table has changed hands twice in two days

The Kings are first again. Antigua and Barbuda Falcons had gone top the night before, when Moeen Ali came in at 56 for three against the Barbados Tridents and finished 56 not out. It held for about 24 hours.

Trinbago are sixth. They have Narine, Pollard and Pooran, three players any Indian follower of franchise cricket can place without thinking, and they keep losing matches in which at least one of them does something worth watching. The Kings have worked out something simpler: a wicketkeeper who bats the full 20 overs, and a captain who takes three wickets in four balls.

Follow the rest of the CPL with us