The Caribbean Premier Leagueis back in St Lucia on Sunday night when the CPL 2024 campaign continues with a clash between the St Lucia Kings and the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons at the Daren Sammy Stadium.
These two sides currently sit either side of the top four line so this is a big match for both teams, particularly as matches are starting to run out on the season for each of them. We should be in for a competitive showing here.
St Lucia Kings
After setting up a promising season with wins in their two away matches to begin the season, the St Lucia Kings will be pleased to have finally got off the mark at the third time of asking on home soil last time out. They now have a couple of home games remaining to look to take advantage of and ensure that the latter part of the campaign is purely about their position in the top four rather than their spot in it. A win here wouldn’t quite sew up a playoff berth but it would all but so the job for them so that is a decent incentive for the home side in this one.
If there is an immediate concern for the Kings it would be that their three wins have all been against the two teams below them in the table. They face on of them here so that is fine but it tells us they have come up short against the better sides in the competition which will obviously need to change if they are going to get their hands on the trophy. The reason for that is their batting hasn’t always caught fire against those better teams so another positive showing with the bat here will do St Lucia no harm moving forward.
Antigua and Barbuda Falcons
The inaugural season in the competition for the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons was always going to be a tricky one given how established their rivals are with their squads in comparison to themselves and that is how it is proving but their performances might not have been as bad as their record suggests. They have been more than competitive in most of their matches but have sometimes been found out when the pressure has been on at the very end of certain contests. They are starting to look better though.
You would have expected that to be the case anyway when you consider that the squad needed to gel and combinations needed putting together. To add to that, their captain Brandon King began the campaign injured so we are not surprised that the Falcons are improving. The problem they have now is they have used up their home matches and need to get enough wins to reach the postseason on the road. They only have two matches left after this and probably need at least two wins from their last three if not to win out from here so the pressure is on the visitors in this one.
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Key Players
Roston Chase is beginning to become an important player once again for the St Lucia Kings. He is the calm presence in the side with the bat buy his off spin is more than useful and a good performance from him here should serve the home side well.
Sam Billings took a while to get into the groove in this tournament but the longer it has gone on, the more we have seen why he is a regular fixture in the franchise tournaments around the world. Antigua and Barbuda will be looking for another significant contribution in this match.
Betting
I think Noor Ahmad could be in for a decent match here. This is the fourth match on this square this season and so it is naturally going to turn a bit although to be fair there has been turn in the matches here already and the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons have been very poor against spin this term. To be fair, they didn’t bat too badly against the Barbados Royals’ spinners last time out but the two matches before that Wanindu Hasaranga took four wickets on his own and the two Trinbago Knight Riders’ spinners took two wickets each.
Noor has previous against the Falcons because in the reverse meeting he picked up 3/18 against them and in the three matches here he has 3/22 and 2/35 along with 0/23 last time out where the St Kitts and Kevis Patriots just played him out and smoked it from the other end having lost a couple of early wickets. Outside of the top three for the Falcons, the batting quality drops off quite quickly and that makes me think the 5/4 on Noor to take more than 1.5 wickets looks a little big.
Tips
Back N.Ahmad – Over 1.5 wickets for a 3/10 stake at 2.25 with Bet365
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