Twenty-one-year-old Ackeem Auguste, who led West Indies at the 2022 U19 World Cup, scored his first T20 half-century during the St Lucia Kings vs Guyana Amazon Warriors CPL 2025 match on Tuesday (August 26).
Choosing to bat first after winning the toss, Guyana Amazon Warriors collapsed to 47-4 and 78-5 before Iftikhar Ahmed (33 off 27), Romario Shepherd (73 off 34), and Dwaine Pretorius (18 off 6) staged a miraculous recovery to help them reach 202-6 in 20 overs.
In the chase, St Lucia lost Johnson Charles in the second over at the score of 18, bringing Auguste to the crease.
Ackeem Auguste announces himself at the big stage
Now 21, Auguste had made his CPL debut in 2022 and had played 19 matches before this, having scored only 176 runs at an average of 17.6 and a high-score of 35. Nothing in the left-hander's record thus far indicated what he was about to do.
Auguste started with a three and four off his first two balls. Having raced off to 17 off eight, he smashed Moeen Ali for his first six of the innings in the fifth over before taking down Imran Tahir, 25 years his senior, in the sixth. The third ball was lofted over long-off for six, while the next three were hit for fours, taking Auguste to 44 off 16 balls.
Also read: 46 years young: Former South Africa leggie breaks T20 world record with career-best bowling figures
He then greeted Gudakesh Motie with a boundary in the seventh over and a single off Tahir in the eighth took him to a 19-ball fifty - his first in T20 cricket, and the fastest in CPL 2025.
The milestone brought a period of quiet Auguste got only seven off the next eight balls he faced, but he didn't take long to get back into groove. Shepherd and Motie were smashed for two sixes in the space of four balls between the 11th and 12th overs.
Auguste was finally dismissed in the 13th over, having taken St Lucia Kings to 140-4 to set a comfortable platform for the finishers to take them over the line, which they did with 11 balls remaining. This was St Lucia Kings' highest-successful chase in the CPL, and the fifth-highest successful CPL chase of all time.
Match 13, Saint Lucia Kings vs Guyana Amazon Warriors
vs
- Ball by ball Over
Auguste's 35-ball 73 was studded with six fours and four sixes. Before this knock, he had never scored more than 20 runs at a 150-plus strike rate in a T20 innings.
The youngster has also played 22 first-class and 24 List A matches, but is yet to make a mark. He averages 26.47 in first-class cricket and 25.57 in List A, and hasn't scored a hundred yet in any format. This CPL knock might just be breakthrough that turns his fortunes around.
Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.
