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Glorious uncertainties my foot!
Andre Fletcher’s hapless Saint Kitts and Nevis Patriots have deservedly been put out to pasture, completely unable to raise a finger to save themselves.
Photo: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/CPL T20 via Getty Images
Their nearest neighbours, Chris Green’s Antigua and Barbuda Falcons showed that they had something but it simply was not enough; they too are gone—to nobody’s surprise!
There are now only three games left in the league phase of the 2024 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League.
So you don’t have to have any crystal ball or an inside line to the late Papa Neza to predict the order of the top four finish: Saint Lucia Kings, Guyana Amazon Warriors, Trinbago Knight Riders and Barbados Royals.
Realistically, all things considered, the three games suggest only two possibilities.
Photo: Randy Brooks/CPL T20 via Getty Images
Faf du Plessis’ front-running Kings have one game left and are at the top of the table with 14 points.
Captain Imran Tahir recovered from whatever was ailing him to come and lead the Guyana Amazon Warriors past Rovman Powell’s back-pedalling Barbados Royals on Wednesday night.
GAW are sitting pretty in second place on 12 points, coiled up like a mapepire about to strike. Twice!
Their first victims will be du Plessis’ SiLKen soldiers at Providence on Saturday morning. Then, on Sunday evening, they get their teeth into Kieron Pollard’s Knight Riders in a reprise of last year’s final.
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Now, the Warriors are at home and getting better with each game. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that they win both games and motor past SLK on to 16 points.
But I expect the rampant SLK—careful, thoughtful, planning, not to say plotting—to stop the Warriors, rabid home support notwithstanding, in their tracks.
That will—will, not would, mind you—give them an unassailable 16 points.
The Royals, on ten points, are in the final four, one might say, by default. They have stood all season on the shoulders of their senior pro, Quinton de Kock. When he fires, they win; when he does not, they lose.
Photo: Randy Brooks/CPL T20 via Getty Images
They seem to have lost their rhythm and, with it, their last three games on the spin. They will have to dig deep psychologically to climb out of the hole they have dug for themselves.
Like the Kings, they have a single game left against TKR on Friday at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba.
TKR too are on ten points after the Kings put a massive spoke in their wheel in addition to their two surprising losses at the hands of the Falcons. So it’s the Royals who occupy third spot on the table by virtue of their better net run rate (+0.277 compared to -.087)—but, given the playoffs format, that is of no importance at all.
Photo: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/CPL T20 via Getty Images
Despite their setbacks, expect TKR to get past the jaded, battle-weary Royals. The travails Powell’s men experienced in the closing overs of their last game suggest more than a little disarray in the camp in spite of the captain’s attempt to put a brave face on it.
The experience and the professionalism of his players to which Pollard repeatedly points are likely to stand the team in very good stead on Friday.
But on Republic Day, experience and professionalism were not much help against the raw power and the refined technique of Johnson Charles.
Photo: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/CPL T20 via Getty Images
In Match 30 on Sunday, the combination is likely to again prove inadequate when pitted against the sheer will to win of the Warriors—perennial bridesmaids until last year’s sweet-tasting triumph. If Tahir’s side does not end up with the ring, they are virtually certain to be at the altar anyway.
TKR, for so long a lean, mean fighting machine, have been showing their age this season. With injury sidelining Narine and DJ Bravo, the bowling looks much less threatening.
Photo: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/CPL T20 via Getty Images
Akeal Hosein still has what it takes but Waqar Salamkheil has been a sort of curate’s egg, good only in parts. And, at 36, Andre Russell is an accident waiting to happen.
Pollard stepped into the breach in the last game but even the most die-hard TKR would concede that you can’t really expect lightning to strike in the same place twice. Or three times.
Secondly, the difference between the Royals’ dependence on de Kock and TKR’s on Pooran is only a matter of degree. And Pooran is an unapologetic, unrepentant believer in the idea that the way to T20 heaven is in the air, not on the ground.
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You can bet your bottom dollar that du Plessis, Tahir and Powell are only too well aware of that.
But for me, SLK are the team to beat. Their confidence is up, their spirits are high and they have won their last five matches in a canter. They began the season chasing down 201, no mean feat even if it was only achieved off the last ball.
And they have a very valuable off-the-field (most of the time!) asset in Daren Sammy. Discerning people will not underestimate the value of his boundary line coaching and his dressing room pep talks.
Photo: Ashley Allen – CPL T20/CPL T20 via Getty Images
The Warriors are on the up and up, rising at the correct time. The return of their charismatic leader Tahir seems to have given them a new fillip and the form of the number one batsman, Shimron Hetmyer, has infused new confidence into the team and the supporters.
All is well in Warriors World and so they may very well peak in the playoffs, perhaps even in the final.
Whatever the permutations possible over this weekend, whoever winds up in the Eliminator and whoever ends up in Qualifier 1, all signs point to a GAW/SLK final.
Photo: Ashley Allen/ CPL T20 via Getty Images
Glorious uncertainties my foot!
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Warren Thompson is a Tobagonian by birth, a life-long student of cricket by preference and an economist by profession. His formal training came at QRC, The UWI and the University of Wales but the assets/skills of which this father of three girls is proudest come from the School of Hard Knocks.
