The Caribbean Premier League heads to Guyana for the remainder of the CPL 2022 season with the first match coming along on Wednesday afternoon when the pacesetters Barbados Royals take on the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
This is a much bigger match for the defending champions than it is the leaders as Barbados have already secured their spot in the finals. The Patriots need to win their last two matches and hope it is enough to sneak in.
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots
It is do or die time for the defending champions. To say their title defence hasn’t gone to plan is an understatement. It has been so indifferent that with two matches left their destiny is out of their own hands. In order to reach the postseason all they can do is win their final two matches and hope that 10 points is enough to make the top four. It is unlikely but it isn’t impossible but the Patriots have to make sure they do their part of the bargain.
In these slow Providence conditions you would think that St Kitts and Nevis Patriots have the bowling stock to get the job done but their batters haven’t really convinced at any stage in the competition. They will be hoping that as a unit they have left their two best performances for this match and the next one. Anything else and you sense they will be put out of their misery once and for all in one of the two matches.
Barbados Royals
The Barbados Royals have already secured top spot in the table with two matches left of the regular season. These final two matches are all about keeping their momentum and pushing on to make sure they hit the finals in good form and full of confidence rather than limp their way there and then come unstuck when they get there. The Royals know that by topping the table they have guaranteed two goes at making the final should they need them so they are in a great position.
The spanner in the works for the Barbados Royals could come in the fact that they have lost a couple of players ahead of the Guyana leg of the campaign and two big ones at that in Quinton de Kock and their captain David Miller. It looks likely that Kyle Mayers will take over the captaincy while Harry Tector will replace one of the departed two players but having been such a settled team prior to leaving Trinidad, they will have to use some new blood from here on in.
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Key Players
This used to be the home ground in this competition of Sherfane Rutherford and the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots need a return home to inspire their big hitter who has offered nothing of note throughout the tournament to date.
Jason Holder is slowly becoming a very important player for the Barbados Royals and it might be that he gets nudged up the order to fill in for one of the departed batters. His bowling has been very good in the tournament to date too.
Betting
I’m very surprised that the run line for this match is up near the 300 run mark. The pitches at Providence are notoriously hard to score on and we saw evidence of that in the three match ODI series West Indies played against Bangladesh here earlier in the summer where the scores were 149/9 vs 151/4 (41 overs), 108 vs 112/1 and 178 vs 179/6. The ball doesn’t come onto the bat and the spinners nearly always get their own way.
In that ODI series Gudakesh Motie had overall figures of 26.4-4-80-6 while the Bangladesh spinners took 17 wickets with two of them going at less than three an over for the 37.4 overs they bowled. There are two of the best spinners in the game on show here in Rashid Khan and his Afghanistan teammate Mujeeb and there are plenty of other slower bowlers who can make batting hard. We saw Barbados struggle with the bat in sluggish conditions last time out and St Kitts and Nevis aren’t exactly flowing with the willow either so this run line looks too high.
Tips
Back Under 299.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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