St Lucia Zouks takes on the table topper Trinbago Knight Riders in the first fixture of Wednesday in the Caribbean Premier League 2020.
Team Previews
The top two sides of the current season will face each other for the first time in Caribbean Premier League 2020. Trinbago has a strong lineup and they’re unbeaten so far with three straight wins. In the previous encounter, Trinbago came out from the early blows at the top order and put the highest total of the tournament. After Colin Munro’s blistering 30-balls 50, Darren Bravo (54) and Keiron Pollard (41) put a 98-runs stand for the 4th wicket and put 185 on the board. Despite a solid start from the openers, the defending champions couldn’t cross the line and fell short of 19 runs. Trinbago has been a tough side to beat at home and they have won 22 games out of 38 at Queen’s Park Oval. Narine and Munro both are having a splendid run with the bat and the middle-order is carried by Bravo and Pollard.
Meanwhile, St Lucia is also on a winning boat, coming off three straight wins. Sitting on the 2nd spot, they have the best opportunity to top the table. The victory in rain-affair against Barbados set a momentum for Zouks, and they carried it in the next two games against Patriots and Guyana with 10 runs victories. In the last encounter, the batting was again tested and Zouks were rescued by Roston Chase with yet another fifty. Guyana looked set at one stage riding on Pooran’s knock but it was Chemar Holder who defended 12 runs in the final overs to give St Lucia third consecutive wins in the tournament. Sammy’s main task is against Trinbago and the batting issues are still creating trouble for him. In the previous two occasions, bowlers put a smile on team management. The home advantage put Trinbago ahead of the Zouks in Wednesday’s tie.
Pitch Report
St Lucia Zouks and Trinbago Knight Riders match will be played at Queen’s Park Oval. It’s a quite batting-friendly track and offers a good amount of runs. The spinners could come into the party in middle-overs. It’s a first game of the day so batting first would be a good call. A score above 150 could be a challenging one to chase. The weather is cloudy on Wednesday, a pure T20 condition.
Possible XI
St Lucia Zouks
Andre Fletcher (wk), Kimani Melius, Mark Deyal, Najibullah Zadran, Roston Chase, Javelle Glenn, Mohammad Nabi, Daren Sammy (C), Scott Kuggeleijn, Kesrick Williams and Chemar Holder
Trinbago Knight Riders
Lendl Simmons, Sunil Narine, Colin Munro, Darren Bravo, Kieron Pollard (c), Tim Seifert (wk), Dwayne Bravo, Khary Pierre, Jayden Seales, Ali Khan, and Fawad Ahmed
Key Players
St Lucia Zouks
Roston Chase
M: 4, Runs: 122, Avg: 40.67, Wickets: 5
Mohammad Nabi
M: 4, Runs: 90, Avg: 30, Wickets: 3
Trinbago Knight Riders
Sunil Narine
M: 4, Runs: 111, Avg: 37, Wickets: 4
Colin Munro
M: 3, Runs: 116, Avg: 58, SR: 139.76
