Knight Riders earn massive win in CPL opener

Sent in, Stars laboured to 132 for nine off their 20 overs in an innings at the Darren Sammy Cricket Ground that stuttered and stumbled throughout without ever finding momentum.

Opener Andre Fletcher topscored with 26 from 27 balls while Kyle Mayers lashed 23 from 15 deliveries batting at number nine, but the two were the only ones to pass 20.

Pakistan leg-spinner Shadab Khan finished with two for 15 from his four overs to claim Manof- the-Match honours while captain Dwayne Bravo ended two for 23 in his first competitive game in seven months following a return from injury.

In reply, Colin Munro smashed an unbeaten 66 off 39 deliveries and fellow New Zealander Brendon McCullum, 58 not out off 27 balls, as TKR stormed to their target in the 11th over without so much as breaking a sweat.

Champion off-spinner Sunil Narine failed in his role as opener, falling for a first-ball ‘duck’ in the first over with five runs on the board but Munro and McCullum tore the Stars bowling apart in a 132-run, unbroken second wicket stand.

Munro belted seven fours and three sixes to post his half-century off 26 deliveries while McCullum blasted a brace of fours and seven sixes as he raced to his fifty off a mere 24 balls.

Neither batsman spared an inch. Munro single-handedly took 21 runs from the seventh over sent down by captain Sammy but was given a life on 46 off the final delivery when he was dropped in the deep by Mayers.

McCullum muscled 18 runs from the ninth bowled by off-spinner Rahkeem Cornwall as TKR raced past the 100-run mark and Munro put stars out of their misery two overs later when he cleared the ropes at long-on with left-arm seamer Mitchell McClenaghan for the winning runs. Earlier, key men Johnson Charles (two) and Pakistan’s Kamran Akmal (five) perished cheaply leaving Stars on 27 for two in the fourth over.

Fletcher, who struck four fours, joined with Marlon Samuels (13) to add 28 for the third wicket – the best stand of the innings – but once Samuels picked out Darren Bravo at deep point with pacer Kevon Cooper in the seventh over, the innings slumped and never recovered.