Jeremiah Louis Took 5 for 10 in Seventeen Balls and Was the Second Paragraph
Three career T20 wickets on Tuesday. Eight on Wednesday. Five of them at home, in the time it takes to make a tea, in a match where somebody else hit the fastest hundred ever.
In this piece
Wednesday
Match 25 of 39 in the CPL. Warner Park, Basseterre. Patriots, fifth, against Kings, fourth. Seven in the morning Perth time, which is the only reason I was watching, and I was watching, and I'd like that on the record because nobody else was.
By nine o'clock it had the fastest hundred in the tournament's history, the biggest win in the tournament's history, and the third-best bowling figures in the tournament's history. Three all-time records, one Wednesday, and the bloke who took five in seventeen balls was the second paragraph.
The first paragraph
Dasun Shanaka came in at 89 for 2 and left on 121 off 43. Twelve sixes. Hundred off 39 balls, fastest ever in the CPL. Twenty-eight off the last over from Keon Gaston, who bowled six deliveries and watched four go for six and one for four. That isn't an over. That's a workplace incident. Patriots 235 for 4.
Everything after that was going to be a footnote.
The second paragraph
Kings needed 236. They were 55 for 4 early. Tim Seifert made 50 off 36 for a side about to be bowled out for 98, three weeks after winning the Hundred with 72 off 38. Best-dressed man at his own eviction, second time this month. Somebody check on him.
Then Jeremiah Louis came on and took five of the last six wickets. Five for 10. Two overs and five balls. Kings 98 all out. Patriots won by 137, the biggest margin in CPL history, and their net run rate went from minus 0.547 to plus 0.593 in one evening, which is finding a car down the back of the couch.
Two men have done better with the ball in this competition. Shakib, 6 for 6, 2013. Sohail Tanvir, 5 for 3. Third, now and possibly forever, is a 30-year-old from St Kitts who, as of the last time anyone bothered to update his record, had three T20 wickets in his career. Three. He has eight. Five of them came in a cup of tea.
I bowl what I think is fast and what the scorer records as medium. I have a hat-trick, and the third wicket was twelve. I know what a bowling career made mostly of hope looks like from the inside. I have never had a Wednesday like that. I am not jealous. I'm saying that in the way people who are jealous say it.
Who he is
Nickname Stingers. Born in St Kitts, March 1996, so Wednesday happened at home in front of people who watched him at fourteen. Sixty first-class games. A hundred and fifty-five wickets at 26, which is the record of a man who has bowled a lot of overs into the wind at grounds where nobody was filming.
He's been on the edge for years. West Indies A. West Indies B. Named as an injury replacement in the Test squad for England in 2024, didn't play. His younger brother Mikyle did, at Lord's, and became the first St Kitts cricketer to play a Test. The fast bowler watched.
In April, batting for the Leewards against Trinidad, a ball from Jayden Seales reared off a length and hit him on the helmet. Stretcher, ambulance, hospital, scans clear, home the next day. The match was abandoned because the pitch was dangerous. On the way off, according to the reports, he slapped the pitch and booted his helmet towards square leg. That is the most reasonable response to a cricket pitch I have read about all year.
Five months later, five for ten, at home, in seventeen balls, second paragraph. If you wrote it, the editor would send it back.
Things I loved
- Five in seventeen. Third-best in CPL history. Three career T20 wickets in April.
- Keon Gaston's last over, which I hope he never watches back.
- A helmet booted at a bad pitch in April. The pitch has not commented.
