Nicholas Pooran smashed the first hundred of Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2020, the third fastest in the tournament’s history at just 45 balls, and the first of his T20 career, to rescue the Guyana Amazon Warriors from another shaky start with the bat and make a mockery of what looked like a competitive St Kitts & Nevis Patriots total. ‘Smashed’ belies the class and timing with which Pooran struck the ball to all parts of the Queen’s Park Oval.
Amazon Warriors’ captain Chris Green won the toss and chose to field, and bowled Kieran Powell sixth ball of the match. Kevin Sinclair got the second over on his senior T20 debut and went for just a single. While Evin Lewis took Green for 10 off two balls, he chopped on to become Sinclair’s first career T20 wicket.
Ben Dunk started with an edged four off Green, and Joshua da Silva was busy at the crease. But three singles were all the two could manage as Sinclair bowled a third in a row, and after the Powerplay the Patriots were 33/2.
Imran Tahir nearly had Da Silva stumped, but a swept four by Dunk saw the over go for 8. Sinclair bowled out in one go, and with 17 dots and no boundaries it was a fine first T20 spell. Tahir’s second went for just three, and Dunk lost patience against Green and was bowled to leave the Patriots 51/3 at the drinks break.
The St Lucia Zouks smashed the record for the lowest total ever defended in Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL), as Kesrick Williams and the spinners strangled an anxious Barbados Tridents batting lineup to leave Jason Holder’s men reeling. The Tridents, and in particular Hayden Walsh, were outstanding with the ball to skittle the Zouks, but manage to lose despite not even being bowled out.
Joshua Bishop came in for his second senior T20 game, replacing the injured Mitchell Santner, and just as he had in his first match, last year against the same opposition, he dismissed Rakheem Cornwall in the first over. Andre Fletcher’s innings was dramatic but brief - he smashed Holder for six first ball, but the Tridents captain trapped him LBW second - and after eight balls the Zouks were 12/2.
Bishop bowled an impressive second over, beating both Leniko Boucher and Roston Chase and having Chase dropped at point. Holder showed faith in Walsh after his mauling at the hands of Kieron Pollard yesterday, and Walsh should have dismissed Boucher but Shai Hope missed a simple stumping. Rashid Khan was as accurate as ever, and the Zouks reached the Powerplay at 35/2.
After more than a dozen years of reports and debate on restructuring the governance arrangements of West Indies cricket, proponents of the idea may have their best shot of securing reform with the latest report on the matter by a task force led by Jamaican businessman Don Wehby.
Several factors are now in better alignment for an acceptance of the Wehby recommendations, or a great portion of them, beyond any agreement on the long-standing argument that Cricket West Indies (CWI), the body that oversees the sport in the Caribbean, is not fit for purpose for today’s circumstances.
First, Mr Wehby and his team avoided the ‘let’s throw the bums out’ tone of Professor Eudine Barriteau’s document of five years ago, which called for “the immediate dissolution” of what was then the West Indies Cricket Board, to be replaced by an interim body while an “obsolete governance framework” was revamped. It is the CWI that would have had to disband itself.
And while Mr Wehby’s report, like former Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson’s in 2007, embraced the concept of West Indies cricket as a public good, and, therefore, insisted on stakeholder public involvement in its management, Mr Wehby’s formula is less intrusive than Mr Patterson’s, which had a whiff of public sector-type bureaucracy and, from our vantage point, the potential for mission creep and power grab by regional governments.
The Trinbago Knight Riders continued their dominance of Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2020, bowling and fielding superbly to blow away the Guyana Amazon Warriors top order and completing what could have been a tricky chase on a slow pitch with time to spare.
Sikandar Raza opened the bowling and turned his first ball sharply but his sixth went straight on to bowl Brandon King, and Khary Pierre deceived Chandrapaul Hemraj and Nicholas Pooran to leave the Amazon Warriors 12/3. Pollard sensed blood, putting himself under the helmet practically on the batter’s toes.
Ross Taylor was positive, pulling Raza hard for four. Pollard almost pulled off a blinder at silly-point, just failing to hold as Taylor lunged forward off Pierre. But Taylor found Raza easier, cutting for four, slog-sweeping in trademark fashion for six, and paddle-sweeping for another four to take the Amazon Warriors to 39/3 off the Powerplay.
Mohammad Nabi’s career-best figures, the third-best in Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) history, led a spin demolition of the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots. He was well supported by Rakheem Cornwall and Zahir Khan, and Cornwall followed up with a brief but brilliant assault that took any remaining tension out of the chase for the St Lucia Zouks.
After Zouks’ captain Daren Sammy put them in, the Patriots had yet to score when Nabi dismissed both Chris Lynn and Nick Kelly. Lynn continued his run of being dismissed by spinners, pushing a simple catch back to the bowler, and Kelly edged to the safe hands of Rakheem Cornwall at slip.
Nabi soon made it four. Denesh Ramdin sought to follow a Hero Maximum over long-on with one over square leg but top-edged to Najibullah Zadran, and next ball Patriots leading scorer of Hero CPL 2020, Evin Lewis, spooned a sweep to Roston Chase at square leg to leave the Patriots 11/4 off just 3 overs and Nabi on a hat-trick.
