Inaugural Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) Champions, Jamaica Tallawahs and current title holders Trinbago Knight Riders will meet later today at the Queens Park Oval, in what is expected to be a keen battle. It will be the Tallawahs second game while Knight Riders will be playing their fourth in the exciting tournament to date.
Colin Munro
Both teams have contrasting starts, as the Knight Riders opened the tournament at home with a six wicket loss against the Darren Sammy led St. Lucia Zouks l while on the other hand the Tallawahs won by five runs against the St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
The match will conclude the Trinidad segment of this year’s CPL and Knight Riders will be aiming to finish good. There are currently one win from three matches, losing to the Zouks and arch rivals Guyana Amazon Warriors; there only victory so far is against the Barbados
Andre Russell
Tridents.
In those three matches, the Knight Riders batted first and had mixed performances with the bat and ball. -Even though they scored over 150 in all their matches, their batting is yet to get into full strive as they continue to lose wickets early in the innings.
Nevertheless, Kiwi batsman Colin Munroe who scored a century (the first in this year’s tournament) against the Amazon Warriors while the Bravo brothers, Dwayne and Darren along with Hashim Amla have all scored half centuries.
Overseas player Umar Akmal and the explosive Brendon McCullum have not added to the Knight Riders’ cause so far and needs to come good if they are to win against the Tallawahs.
Meanwhile, the bowling department which is led by mystery off spinner Sunil Narine is struggling, Narine has not been at his best in
Chris Gayle
recent times, but has bowled economically.
The other bowlers that were used thus far; Dwayne Bravo, Kevon Kooper, Sulieman Benn, Ronsford Beaton, Nikita Miller among others, have also been below par. They need to recuperate to inspire a win for their team
The Tallawahs which comprises of hard hitting opener Christopher Gayle, exciting all-rounder Andre Russell and retired Sri Lankan great Kumar Sangakkara was not as impressive as expected in their first game but they still won.
They made and defended 153 runs. The aforementioned trio led the batting, with Gayle belting his way to 51 from 34 deliveries, Russell blasted an unbeaten 34 from 20 balls and Sangakkara chipped in with 26.
As expected, hostile South African fast bowler Dale Steyn bowled with discipline and pace, but it was rookie bowler Kesrick Williams who led the Tallawahs attack. The 26 year old Vincentian collected three wickets for 23 runs to secure the win for his side. Besides Steyn and Williams’ bowling efforts, the rest of the Tallawahs’ bowlers supported well.
Clashes between the two times are mostly mouthwatering with lots of spectacular individual and collective performances. In seven
Sunil Narine
meetings between the two teams the Tallawahs holds the advantage with four wins while the Knight Riders has managed three.
The visitors will be looking to continue along a winning path while the home team will be hunting a win to move up the points chart and gain some confidence before heading to Guyana.
Match time is 19:00h
