The second semi-final of the Caribbean Premier League sees two teams who are aiming to win the competition for the first time battling out for a place in the final when the Guyana Amazon Warriors take on the St Lucia Zouks.
The Amazon Warriors are no strangers to making the final but consistency fluff their lines when they get there. The Zouks have never tasted the big showdown and will be eager to make the most of the opportunity they have created for themselves.
Guyana Amazon Warriors
It was a pretty slow start to the season for the Guyana Amazon Warriors but they picked up their form around the time that the competition went to the Queens Park Oval and they look primed for a big challenge in this semi-final as the pitches have very much gone to their strengths, as was expected to be the case in many ways. The slower and lower the pitches are the more comfortable the Amazon Warriors are, especially with the ball.
The real reason why the Amazon Warriors picked up their form was their batsmen stopped chasing huge scores and learning to rotate the strike and put the bad ball away. Immediately the form of all of their top five picked up and now there appears to be no weakness in their make up, other than the fragile mentality we often see from them in crunch matches. That tends to be saved until the final but if they are chasing an awkward score here you do wonder whether they will be strong enough to survive.
St Lucia Zouks
The St Lucia Zouks have gone about their season in the opposite way to their opponents here. They flew out of the traps and were early contenders for winning the league phase of the competition but the second half of the term was more of a struggle as injuries and a loss of form hit on pitches which probably weren’t ideal to their skill set. With that in mind, it was important for them to finish their regular season with a win to restore confidence and that is exactly what they did.
The immediately obvious concern for the Zouks is their inability to rotate the strike at the top of the innings. That means that they can often get behind the run rate if they are not careful and struggle from there. The other slight concern is that they lack that mystery spinner that all the successful sides in this competition seem to have, but what they do have to make up for that is the best captain in the tournament, which has been relevant when they have defended a number of low scores already.
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Key Men
Shimron Hetmyer is the leading run scorer in the competition for the Guyana Amazon Warriors so they will need him to come to the party if they are to put up the sort of score that eases any angst among their side as they bid for a place in a sixth CPL final.
Darren Sammy might not have contributed much with the bat in this tournament and he has only bowled two overs in the competition but where he has contributed is his captaincy. If St Lucia win this his amazing cricketing brain will have a part to play.
Betting
These two sides have met each other twice this season and they have both picked up a win each so there isn’t a whole lot between them. Incidentally, both matches were low scoring and given the pressure of the prize that hangs over this match I don’t expect this one to be particularly high scoring. I think it is fair to say that both teams have their strength in their bowling attacks on these pitches rather than their batsmen so another low scoring semi-final is anticipated.
If I had to pick a winner here I’d side with the mastermind that is Daren Sammy and his St Lucia Zouks side but everything points to the better bet being under 285.5 runs. Both matches between the two in the regular season failed to clear this line and scoring is only getting more difficult the longer this campaign has gone on. With so many spin options on both sides I don’t expect the scoring to flow naturally so unless two or three players have days out with the bat I think the under lands here.
Tips
WON – Back Under 285.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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