CPL 2021: St Kitts & Nevis Patriots Win Maiden Title on the Last Ball, Dominic Drakes Hits 48* to Seal It

St Kitts & Nevis Patriots won their first Caribbean Premier League title on 15 September 2021 at Warner Park in Basseterre, St Kitts, defeating St Lucia Kings by 3 wickets off the final ball of the match. Kings posted 159/7; Patriots chased it down at 160/7, with Dominic Drakes hitting the winning runs off the last delivery. Drakes' 48* off 24 balls was both the match-winning and match-deciding innings, earning him Player of the Match. Roston Chase (St Lucia Kings) was named Player of the Tournament with 446 runs and 10 wickets — from the defeated finalist.

Dominic Drakes: 48* Off 24 Balls — Last-Ball Heroics

Dominic Drakes' 48* off 24 balls in the CPL 2021 final was a match-deciding innings of genuine drama: Patriots needed the final ball to win, and Drakes — a young Barbadian right-arm pace-bowling all-rounder — hit the winning runs to deliver the franchise's first CPL championship. Drakes, still in the early phase of his T20 franchise career in 2021, had shown in the competition's earlier stages that he could match his bowling pace with late-order power hitting. His final-ball heroics in the CPL final — hitting the winning runs from the last delivery — gave the Patriots one of the most emotionally resonant title-winning moments in CPL history.

Roston Chase: Player of the Tournament from the Losing Side

Roston Chase (St Lucia Kings) was named CPL 2021's Player of the Tournament with 446 runs and 10 wickets across the full competition — a double contribution from a batter and right-arm off-spinner that reflected genuine all-round excellence across the season. Chase, Barbados and West Indies' right-handed middle-order batter and off-spinner, had been a consistent performer for West Indies across Test and white-ball cricket since the mid-2010s. His CPL 2021 tournament award from the losing finalist team continued the pattern across multiple franchise competitions where the individual season award goes to the player with the highest combined contribution across the full competition, not necessarily from the winning side.

CPL 2021 in Context

CPL 2021 was played in September 2021 in a bio-secure environment in St Kitts — the global COVID-19 situation still constraining international travel and crowds at that point. The full competition was staged at Warner Park in Basseterre across a compressed schedule, removing the traditional home-island hosting advantage that different franchises had enjoyed in previous seasons. The competition's staging under those conditions required significant logistical planning by Cricket West Indies and the CPL administration, and the last-ball drama of the final — Patriots winning from the final delivery — gave the 2021 edition a memorable conclusion.