Sheldon Cottrell hits the last ball for a six
Sheldon Cottrell won the final ball six, Cottrell hit a six off the final ball of the match against Ashley Nurse to help St Kitts & Nevis Patriots beat Barbados Royals and remain undefeated in this season’s CPL helped.
Sheldon claims player of the match honor :-
Expecting four to win off the final ball, Cottrell launched Nurse at long-off and scored an unbeaten 20 off seven balls to celebrate with his team-mates.
Sheldon claimed the honor of Player of the Match. But he could not have done so without contributions from Dominic scoring 28 off 15 to give the Patriots a chance.
The Royals snatched the defeat from the jaws of victory. Chasing 161 runs, Patriots scored 98 for 5 wickets. The game cooled off after fine spells from 20-year-old Naeem Young and uncapped Englishman Jake Lintot. Young took 3 for 26, while Lintot took 2 for 28 in four overs, which included key wickets from Chris Gayle and Sherfane Rutherford.
But Drax and Cottrell kept the game alive with some fine strikes. When Cottrell lost Jason Holder, the Patriots needed 28 off 12 balls. Drakes took 18 runs from the over as the Royals captain remembered his lines and length and was lucky not to be called for a no-ball for a full toss above waist height.
The Gambled for the last over :-
Holder then gambled with Nurse for the final over and needed just 10 runs to win, while Ramon Reifer and Oshane Thomas both had an over each. Dominic Drakes was nearly holed out but Holder could not reach the catch at long-on and it went past him for four. After this, Drakes had to try to score the winning run by scoring five runs off three balls.
Naseem Shah could have taken two runs off the last ball but Cottrell turned down the second run keeping the game on his shoulders. And he backed his side with one of the best strikes of his career.
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Earlier, Dwayne took 4 wickets for 26 runs for the Patriots. Former India Under-19 Smit Patel handled the Royals’ innings with a half-century on his CPL debut. He moved to No. 3 after Shai Hope had trouble. Patel struggled to stream less than a run-a-ball for the opening part of his innings.
Bravo makes great slow deliveries :-
Paul van Meeckeren proved particularly difficult with his extra bounce while Bravo made some excellent slow deliveries. But Patel’s misconduct paid off in the 15th over when Drake was hit for three fours. One came from the inside edge but he also made a great drive and a reverse scoop.
Patel fell to Bravo in the 17th over, but the Royals made 60 off the final 36 balls, with Holder and Young clearing the rope three times between them in crucial cameos.
Had Holder not been run out by being hit from straight cover by Naseem, and in the end.