Patriots vs Royals, 8th Match at Basseterre, CPL, Aug 21 2025 - Ball by Ball Commentary

That's all the action from us today. Thank you for staying with us throughout the whole match. See you all next time. I am Rashad Mahbub, and on behalf of Harshith Gowda and Chetan Kumar, it's goodnight and goodbye!

Rovman Powell: "It's disappointing to have a game like this and throw it away. I think we didn't bat as we wanted to through the middle overs. When it comes to a run chase, we always say someone in the top four or five has to bat for the majority of the overs. This is a good wicket where you have to get yourself out, and we didn't bat well. Hopefully, next time we can be sure that the game is never over. If you keep fighting, as the St Kitts team did today, you can always fight back into the game. It's just disappointing to be on the losing end of two games that we should have won. Looking at our bowling, I think it went pretty well at the start. We would have been happy to chase 170-175. We thought it was a good cricket wicket, but we didn't field as well as we wanted to. That's the second game in a row we haven't fielded well, so there are a few areas for us to work on. Having said that, I think young Ramon Simmonds did well, so there's a lot of encouragement there."

Player of the Match, Jason Holder: "It feels like a damn good win, man. We've had some tough games to put in for this campaign so far, but we guys believe, man. We put some runs on the board. We were always stuck in the game, and credit to the guys for the character they showed. [Bowling] I'm trying my best to work it out. We've got so many options with our bowling deployment. Unluckily, today, Waqar wasn't his normal best, which probably brought the seamers back into the game. But it was just a total routine effort. For me, I'm just trying to understand the guys a little bit more. I understand it when I could come into the game multiple times and just be a little bit more selective in decision-making. [Batting] It's a good question, man. I don't think I'm doing anything majorly different for me, just having a clear mind. I just think one thing that I've really prided myself on this year is just probably having a clear mind, making my mind just be a lot more decisive, rather than indecisive. [Can Captaincy bring out the best of Holder?] I guess so. I guess you see the game from a different light. Me, being captain, got a bit more to think about, and I guess, intuited the game for all 40 overs, perhaps. But I enjoy what I do, and the boys are making my job a lot easier. [What pleases you the most tonight?] Just the character of my boys. We were up against it. We had a tough loss in the last game. We came pretty close against Trinidad, so it's hard sometimes to try to keep the morale of the team going. But the boys were excellent; just thinking when we fought through this entire game. Obviously, we weren't really in the game with a heavy total, but we just knew that we had runs on the board and we could have defended it. I said to the guys at the beginning, I'm probably going to disappoint a few people with the decisions that we make, but the morality team has been pretty strong. The younger players have come in. Has done an excellent job. Young Bidaisee was excellent today. We left out Jed, but he's been excellent so far for us. Nedd is coming in for his first game of the season, being really, well, really good for us. Just the seamers; these senior seamers have actually held their own and really like the charge for us. Again, we're just probably a little short on the runs at the moment. But the biggest thing is that we've gone two wins. [Message to the crowd] Just a lot of love - plenty of love here to the people of St Kitts and Nevis. They come in. They're supporting us. We've been given a lot of stress as well. They're avid fans of it. They just want to see us do really well. And it's just that we really owed it to them. It's two wins at home, and it hasn't been that way for the last couple of seasons. So at least we know we're moving in the positive direction. This is a special one. Just being in a new franchise for me, and just personally coming to add to the cause, and getting the team over the line today speaks volumes for my character as well, too. So I'm really happy with the way I'm going at the moment. Hopefully we can go on and win against Antigua in that next one."

10:35 pm In a match where momentum constantly shifted, the home team secured a much-needed and crucial victory, finally breaking their losing streak against the Royals and ending their home leg with a win. With this victory, the Patriots have now jumped to second place in the standings. The chase started with a blow for the Royals when Nedd trapped Quinton de Kock in front of the stumps while playing the paddle sweep inside the Powerplay. King and Alleyne began rebuilding, and King looked to be in fine form after a long time, but he was dismissed just before the Powerplay ended. By the ten-over mark, the Royals had reached 92 runs for the loss of three wickets, with Alleyne building a solid platform for the chase. However, the Royals then lost wickets in a flurry during the middle overs, causing the momentum to swing yet again. Jason Holder took matters into his own hands, picking up two back-to-back wickets to clean up the lower-middle order after Sams had started to look dangerous. Ultimately, the Royals' poor fielding, which gave away too many extra runs, proved to be the difference. There were so many "what ifs" in the game: What if de Kock hadn't missed that runout in the final over, before Naseem went on to hit two sixes? What if Brandon King hadn't dropped the easy catch off Holder, who then scored a dozen more runs? In the end, none of it mattered, as the Patriots went on a rampage in the death overs through the Royals' batting lineup. The Royals failed to build any significant partnerships, with Alleyne being their top scorer with 42 runs. Jason Holder was a true leader with the ball, finishing with a brilliant performance of 4 wickets for only 14 runs. For 50 innings, they have gone without bowling a side out, and now they have done it twice this season!

St Kitts and Nevis Patriots won by 12 runs

15 runs needed from 12 deliveries. Holder to bowl the penultimate

Here's Naseem Shah

Hat-trick ball

SaraT: "D.Sams can single handedly win the game to his team, so STKNP can't take it easy "