A WOUNDED, winless St Kitts/Nevis Patriots outfit will be desperate for a victory against a Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) unit aiming to stay unbeaten in the 2022 Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) at Warner Park in Basseterre, St Kitts, from 7 pm, on Saturday.
The Dwayne Bravo-led Patriots, defending CPL champions, would have begun the 2022 edition with confidence after winning the inaugural SKYEXCH 6ixty tournament played in St Kitts. That tournament ended on Sunday.
In the 6ixty, Patriots won two of their three preliminary matches to seal a place in the semifinals.
After winning their semifinal contest, Patriots sealed the title by three-wickets against TKR.
However, Patriots’ momentum has not transferred into the CPL with two losses at home.
In the opening match of the tournament, Patriots went down by 47 runs to Jamaica Tallawahs on Wednesday and on Thursday lost to Barbados Royals by seven wickets.
TKR, despite a nervous finish to their opening match, got past St Lucia Kings fairly comfortably by three wickets, on Thursday.
TKR and Patriots are familiar with each other. Bravo captained TKR to three CPL titles and played under Kieron Pollard when the TT franchise won its fourth crown in 2020. This is Bravo’s second year captaining the Patriots.
Darren Bravo, who played for TKR from the inaugural 2013 CPL to 2021, will play against TKR for the first time. Other players in the Patriots squad from TT are Evin Lewis, a former TKR player, and Joshua Da Silva. They will be eager to impress against their home franchise.
Opener Fletcher, who won the player of the series award in the 6ixty, has continued that form in the CPL.
He carved 81 off 55 balls against the Royals in an innings which included 11 fours and one six.
Akeal Hosein, now one of the most prolific spinners in the Caribbean, is questionable for the match with a groin strain.
In TKR’s opening match, Hosein was unplayable snatching 4/13 in four overs to help reduce the Kings to 143/9 in 20 overs. His spin partner Sunil Narine remains one of the most economical bowlers in the world as batsmen take few risks against him.
Patriots also have spinners in their line-up who can prove to be a handful with Sri Lankan Akila Dananjaya and Jon-Russ Jaggesar, another TT-born player.
West Indies T20 and 50-over captain Nicholas Pooran, who has returned to TKR after spending two years with the TT franchise in 2013 and 2014, will want to shine on his return along with new signing Andre Russell. Pooran only scored four in the opening match and Russell managed just five. However, Russell demonstrated his destructive nature in the 6ixty and cannot be taken lightly.
Pollard will be hoping that his team can be more clinical against Patriots. TKR were 140/4 chasing 144 against Kings, but slipped to 142/7 before Anderson Phillip struck a six to calm the nerves.
In the post-match media conference, Pollard said, “We will take the two points. Obviously, yes (we wanted to finish it before) the last couple overs…but we have to take everything into the
