The Caribbean Premier League finishes the Barbados leg of the season on Sunday night when the Barbados Tridents take on the St Lucia Zouks in front of what is likely to be a packed Kensington Oval.
Barbados sit in the final playoff spot going into the match but they have games in hand to enhance their position. St Lucia currently sit bottom of the pile but amazingly they have only played three matches to date so they have plenty of chances to climb up the ladder.
Barbados Tridents
Once again in this competition we have a side backing up a match the following day and while it is never easy to do it is even harder to do off the back of a defeat so Barbados will really need to be at their best and will need their leaders to come to the fore here.
They will also need a really good bowling performance after the way they were taken to the cleaners by Trinbago on Saturday and how good and powerful this St Lucia Zouks’ batting line up looks. With Jason Holder now away with the West Indies that isn’t necessarily guaranteed.
St Lucia Zouks
St Lucia won the opening game of this tournament this season but here we are going into game 18 and they haven’t won since so that is something they will need to put behind them. The table is very lop sided and they will know that their home leg comes next week so they have a real chance to gain momentum then but going into that with another win would be lovely.
The strength of this St Lucia side is very much with their batting but they have some canny bowlers who if they get it right can be hard for any side to get away. They haven’t played since Tuesday so they should be nice and fresh heading into the match.
Betting
I’m going to sound like a broken record with all these mentions of the scheduling and how it affects players and things but there is a clear theme both in this competition and the NatWest T20 Blast. Very few teams win the night after they play a game and that is what Barbados have to fight here.
That said rather than take on AB de Villiers I would rather side with St Lucia Zouks on the sixes rather than the match betting. Barbados don’t have a lot of six hitters whereas the likes of Johnson Charles, Andre Fletcher, Shane Watson, David Miller and Darren Sammy are some of the most fearsome six hitters you’ll find especially on a good batting track like this one is.
AB de Villiers hasn’t been peppering the sixes in this tournament and with Nicholas Pooran and Kieron Pollard batting down the order there is every chance they will come in too late to make a difference to the sixes here. St Lucia are the outsiders to hit the most sixes but I expect them to do just that.
Tips
Back St Lucia Most 6s for a 4/10 stake at 2.63 with Winner Sports
Back it here:
Barbodas win ,my loss