Pooran's career best knock gives Tridents the win

Mon, Jul 18, '16

The Barbados Tridents ended their home leg of the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) with a victory over the St Lucia Zouks. A superb innings from Tridents wicket-keeper Nicholas Pooran saw the Tridents set the Zouks 174 to win. The 20-year-old Pooran made a career best as the Tridents won by 25 runs.

Wickets fell throughout the Zouks chase as Andre Fletcher top-scored with just 20. The Tridents made a tentative start to their innings as they reached 28-0 in the PowerPlay, managing only two boundaries inside the fielding restrictions. Neither of the openers could make a sizeable contribution as both of them fell when they tried to inject some pace into the innings once the field went back. Shoaib Malik and Kyle Hope fell skying catches in the space of five balls of each other.

With the openers gone AB de Villiers and Nicholas Pooran combined in a superb stand that was worth 68 runs from 40 balls. The class of de Villiers is well known, but Pooran has impressed with the bat this season. He missed last year’s Hero CPL as a result of a leg injury sustained in a car crash and he has been making up for lost time. He was going so well that de Villiers was happy to turn the strike over to him. Still just 20 years of age, Pooran has a bright future ahead of him.