The opening match of the new Caribbean Premier League season sees the Jamaica Tallawahs take on the defending champions and the home side for the opening block of matches in the form of St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
The Patriots will be looking to get their title defence off to the perfect start and are favourites against a Jamaica Tallawahs who can prove that they can deliver the goods despite the raft of talent that has left in the close season.
Jamaica Tallawahs
It was a pretty ordinary campaign for the Jamaica Tallawahs last term with just four wins from their 10 matches. I think a lot of people expected there to be some sort of fallout from that but I’m not sure that the loss of Andre Russell was what people saw. Russell was the fourth highest run scorer and the second highest wicket taker for Jamaica last season so he is going to be missed here. Another big miss will be Carlos Brathwaite who while he didn’t contribute massively last term, he did balance the side.
On the face of it though it looks as though the Jamaica Tallawahs will be competitive when they have the ball in their hand assuming that Miguel Pretorius can keep surprising batters. Where you wonder how the Tallawahs will cope is with the bat where if projections are to be believed Fabian Allen and Imad Wasim are going to bat at five and six and that is surely too high even allowing for their talents. It will need their top four to bat deep which might mean they are unable to go big as early as they would like.
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots
All good teams strengthen even when they have won a title and that is exactly what the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots have done in the off season. Darren Bravo has arrived ahead of the new season to strengthen with the bat while Dwaine Pretorius has been recruited as an overseas option along with Akila Dananjaya and then later in the tournament the Patriots will have the services of Wanindu Hasaranga to call upon.
There doesn’t look to be a weakness in this St Kitts and Nevis side. I always think in this competition the two things you need are incredible batting depth and good spin options and the Patriots certainly have that. There is a chance that Dominic Drakes will only have space to bat at eight and as I’ve mentioned the spinners they can call upon are good. The only other concern would be managing expectation but I’m not sure that doubt registers at the CPL.
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Key Players
Rovman Powell has been to the Indian Premier League since the last season of CPL so he has become a leading figure in the global franchise game. You sense that if Jamaica are to have any kind of a positive season he will need to show his best form.
Evin Lewis comes into the tournament as someone with a point to prove in this match. He hasn’t featured for West Indies recently with fitness issues being cited as the reason. He has the chance to ram that down the throats of those in charge at that level.
Betting
This tournament is full of big hitters and we always see the sixes fly in it but I fancy we are going to see more from the bat of the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots players than we are the Jamaica Tallawahs ones. I say that because Jamaica look very light in out and out batters and while there are hitters down the order they can’t just swing from the hip if they are a couple down early as that would leave them exposed and potentially shot out for nothing.
The Patriots don’t have any concerns in that regard because they bat as deep down as Dwayne Bravo who will be in at seven or eight. I don’t see a huge amount of difference in these two bowling units, it might be that St Kitts and Nevis have the edge on their home ground but the fact they will have a top four of Evin Lewis, Andre Fletcher, Darren Bravo and Dewald Brevis going at it and then potentially Sherfane Rutherford and Dwayne Bravo to come down the innings I’ll take the champions to hit the most sixes here.
Tips
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