The Caribbean Premier League rolls into the Kensington Oval for the first time in the CPL 2024 season on Wednesday night when the Barbados Royals play their opening home game of the campaign when they face the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons.
Barbados begin their home stretch having won both of their matches to date and a third here will have them handily placed. Antigua and Barbuda have won their last two but games are beginning to run out for them so this should be a competitive match.
Barbados Royals
This has been a near perfect start to the season for the Barbados Royals and now they will be looking to maximise the platform they have as they begin the home leg of their campaign. Barbados know that if they can win four or five of their home matches they will have the job done in terms of pushing for a spot in the playoffs and if they win all five then you have to think they will be well on course for a top two finish and the two goes at getting to the final which comes from that.
The key for the Barbados Royals is that they have two very strong spinners, which historically in this competition has been a defining factor in the successful teams. They have been getting wickets with the new ball and that has taken the pressure off the remainder of the bowling innings. You wouldn’t say that Barbados have hit their straps with the bat yet but they have reinforcements on the way and should only get stronger in that department.
Antigua and Barbuda Falcons
This is a big match for the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons. They have had their home leg of the tournament and with four matches remaining they have two wins to their name. They now go on the road for the remainder of the competition and history would suggest that they are going to need to win two of the four if not three to make it through to the playoffs. The good thing is those two wins they have came in their last two matches so they might be working things out after a slow start.
To be fair to the Falcons, they have lost two matches on the final ball of the match so their 2-4 record could easily be 4-2. While those losses have put them under pressure, they have been competitive in most of their matches and if they can hang tough here they might find that they can get the job done. They will need to bat well here for that to happen but if they can do that there is enough in their bowling unit to cause problems and get the Royals under pressure.
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Key Players
David Miller is expected to join up with the Barbados Royals for the home leg of their season and they will be looking for him to hit the ground running as a potential match winner down the batting order should matches get tight.
Brandon King missed the first part of this tournament because of the injury that he sustained towards the end of the T20 World Cup. He is back now and the Falcons need the best of him as they look to pick up wins on the road.
Betting
I’m not going to go too deep into my thinking in this match because it is the first one at the Kensington Oval for the season and I would rather assess the conditions before thinking outside of the box but I would rate both of these bowling units as more reliable than the batting orders so with that in mind I think we could be in for a lower scoring match than usual. To be fair, the Barbados pitches are usually good for batting but we’ve seen in St Lucia which held the World Cup that the wickets haven’t played as true as usual there and I wonder if that will be an issue here.
Both teams have the bowlers to keep things tight in the powerplay and more importantly to take wickets in that period of the game so I like the thought of the 335.5 run line being a little on the high side. In six matches so far, Antigua and Barbuda have only passed 165 on two occasions and Barbados are yet to concede that in either of their two matches. If the wicket does play a little awkward or it favours spin then this line could just be a shade too high. I’ll play the under.
Tips
Back Under 335.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with Betway
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