There is a double header of action in the Caribbean Premier League on Wednesday and it begins with the high flying Jamaica Tallawahs taking on the defending champions St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in a big game for the latter.
These two opened up the campaign a couple of weeks ago and now they meet in a match you feel the Patriots will need to win if they are to keep up their hopes of a successful title defence. A Tallawahs win will have them dreaming of the top four.
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots
To be fair to the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots it looked like they had put an even stronger squad together to win this tournament but on the field that is not how things have turned out. It might be that their last performance turned out to be their worst and that was their third defeat in just four completed matches. They have four points from six matches and if 12 is the magic number to qualify for the latter stages then the Patriots have to win out.
If they are to turn things around and win out from here then they have to sort their batting out. Even the sole win they have so far this season came via an absolute miracle after their top order messed up the initial part of the innings. If they don’t find some batting form here and now then their season could be over. The good thing for the Patriots is that in the main their bowling has been decent enough so if they can sort the batting out they could still be a feature at the deep end of this event.
Jamaica Tallawahs
The Jamaica Tallawahs know that they can beat the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots because they walloped them on the opening night of the season. They have won two and lost two since then so you wouldn’t say they have been flawless by any stretch of the imagination. When they have been good they have been very good but the reverse can also be attributed to them and although they are in a good place to make the final four, they just need to be a little more consistent just to make sure.
The big issue the Tallawahs have had in recent times is that they are getting nothing from their top order all of a sudden. That means there is a real reliance on their captain Rovman Powell to deliver the goods and if he fails you just wonder what sort of a score they will put on the board. In the main their bowling has gone well but I still worry that in the wrong conditions they could go around the park. I don’t think these are those though.
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Key Players
Rashid Khan is always a key man whenever he turns out for a team in this format. He opened his CPL season in economical mood in the last St Kitts and Nevis match and now that jetlag should have eased off he could be even more potent here.
Rovman Powell is becoming a really important player for the Jamaica Tallawahs. It is always good for a team to have their captain delivering in his strongest suit and Powell is doing that. It might be time for him to bowl a bit more too.
Betting
We’ve seen at both the venues used for day matches in this tournament so far that batting is more difficult in the dry heat of the Caribbean and I’m not expecting too much to be different here in Trinidad. I’m also not expecting too much to be different because when you look at the two bowling units on show here and the amount of spin and canny bowlers on offer this is clearly going to be an awkward day for the batters.
It isn’t as though the two batting units are going that well either. Jamaica made 183 in their opening match but have only cleared 160 once since then while the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots have only made 150 once in the tournament and look to be getting worse with the bat. We have economical banker overs from the likes of Rashid Khan, Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasim and with these pitches playing tougher in the day I don’t see the total runs surpassing 306.5 runs.
Tips
Back Under 306.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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