Coast Pekee kept their chances alive with a confidence performance that saw them defeat favourites Kanbis Tigers by 8 wickets at in the East Africa Premier League match played at the Nairobi Gymkhana ground.
The Coastal side claimed the toss and elected to bowl first and their openers kept the Tigers in check with some disciplined spells chief to that was Nehemiah Odhiambo who returned an economical spell of 4 overs for 17 picking up one wicket in the process.
Rakep Patel (24) was the first of the Tigers batsmen to depart caught at long-on attempting a slog off Jignesh Patel to break an opening stand of 49 between him and Harish Vekaria (17) who followed 9 runs later. These departures slowed down the Tigers charge and only some late hitting from Ashwin Rabadia (41) ensured the scores had some respectability to it. He came in at 58 for 3 and used 25 deliveries to haul the home side into contention that included 6 boundaries and a maximum.
Pekee got about their chase in some style bringing up 50 runs inside the opening four overs thanks largely to Manoj Patel’s 36 of a mere 17 balls and included 5 fours and two sixes. He combined well with in-form fellow opener Irfan Karim (50) off 44 deliveries with 6 fours and a six to produce an opening stand of 67 to swing the game in their favour.
The Tigers seem helpless to stop them and that was confirmed 19 overs in to the innings with Jimmy Kamande smashing a six of the final delivery of the penultimate over from Dishant Mehta to see them home with 6 balls to spare.
Elsewhere, Knights beat Rift Valley Rhinos by 5 wickets at the Greensteds School in Nakuru while Kongonis went down by 14 runs to Warriors at the Nairobi Club.
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