Lord’s (St George’s won toss): St George’s beat Western Stars by 45 runs

Macai Simmons blasted three fours and seven sixes on his way to an unbeaten 76 runs off 40 balls against Western Stars to give St George's the perfect start to their Athene T20 League title defence.

Heading into the match without regular players Oronde Bascome, Zeko Burgess and Sinclair Smith, Simmons, the player of the match, opened the batting and stood firm throughout the St George's innings as they posted 163 for seven. He was also among the wicket takers in restricting Stars to 118 for four.

The 32-year-old was dropped early into his innings, but once he got going, the Stars bowlers were in for some serious punishment.

Simmons watched as wickets kept tumbling at the other end. The other St George’s batters who contributed something meaningful were captain, Onias Bascome, who made 20 and Abdul Salam with 18.

“It’s always good to start off on the front foot,’’ Simmons said. “It was a good win and I felt good out there.

“I made sure that we don’t have wickets falling at both ends. I stayed in to make sure we come up with a respectable score.

“We started off shaky so we needed to steady the ship, and just push on from there from a solid base.

“They dropped me early, I was probably on one run but from there it was show time after that. I never get such luck, I never get dropped too often, so I made sure I took my opportunity.”

St George’s have won the T20 league for three seasons in a row, with Clay Smith’s side gunning for a ‘four-peat’.

“We always play to win, we’re definitely going for the fourth,’’ the St George’s top scorer said.”

While Stars had six wickets in hand at the end, they never looked threatening in chasing down their target of 164. Once the win was secured, St George’s even had the luxury of giving the ball to some of their Evening League players to have a go at the opposition batters.

Brian Hall, the Stars’ highest run scorer with 43 off 23 deliveries, lamented his team’s leisurely start to their run chase.

“Our start was just way too slow,” Hall said. “Being seven for one after four overs in T20 cricket anywhere in the world isn’t good enough.

“By the time I came in, we probably needed 12 runs an over. It was pretty hard to get that total, so I just kept pushing along until I got out.

“It’s something that we have to work on, we’ll come back stronger and get our first win of the season.

“We should have taken our chances when we were fielding, but we didn’t and it’s part of the game. We dropped Macai Simmons early into his innings, he batted really well though after being dropped.”

Following their relegation from the 50-over Premier Division, Stars have three more matches to try and maintain their status in the T20, with this season’s format only having one round-robin round of fixtures.

“We’ll probably try and stay in the Premier Division,’’ the all-rounder added. “That’s the main goal right now and then after that, anything else would be just a bonus.”

Meanwhile, St George’s were before the match officially crowned as the Premier Division 50 Overs champions. They received their trophy and medals from Steven Douglas, the Bermuda Cricket Board’s cricket committee chairman.