We have covered the new Caribbean Premier League season outright and the top batsman and now is the time to try and find the player who will finish CPL 2020 as the leading bowler in the competition, with bookmakers having priced that market up as well.
Some of the best bowlers in the world are descending on this tournament and on pitches that are likely to tire quite quickly with the amount of traffic on them over the course of the three weeks or so that this tournament is in operation for.
Recent Winners
2019 – Hayden Walsh Jr (22)
2018 – Fawad Ahmed (22)
2017 – Sohail Tanvir (17)
2016 – Dwayne Bravo (21)
2015 – Dwayne Bravo (28)
2014 – Ravi Rampaul (18)
2013 – Krishmar Santokie (16)
The Favourites
Rashid Khan competes in the tournament for the first time this season and he is the 8/1 joint favourite alongside Imran Tahir to lead the wicket taking in the competition. Rashid Khan is seen as one of the best T20 bowlers in the world and in a tournament that is designed for spin bowlers to thrive this season he has to go close. Imran Tahir is in the same bracket as Rashid Khan and other than the skinny price there is no reason to oppose either of them.
The 2019 leading bowler Hayden Walsh Jr comes next in the betting at 11/1. He broke through last season when nobody really knew about him but they will know all about him now and that will make his success much more difficult this term. One thing which will help him is the fact that these pitches are likely to assist spinners the longer the tournament goes on. One issue could be that Barbados have a lot of spinners and they could all kill each other so to speak. For that reason I’ll leave him alone.
Four players come next at 12/1 including the man who has twice led the wicket taking in the form of Dwayne Bravo. His star has fallen in recent times though and I don’t think he is going to be a factor on these pitches. Sheldon Cottrell and Oshane Thomas are two of the better seamers in this tournament but I’m not convinced this is going to be a tournament for them. Sandeep Lamichhane is very much of interest but it remains to be seen how well the Tallawahs go this season.
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Profile
As with the batsmen, we need to whittle the field down a little so that we have a select group to pick from rather than a potential 25 runners or more. Once again we are looking for teams who will go the distance in this tournament, or as close to it as is possible, and then we have to make the choice of whether we are backing a spinner or a seamer. The first five winners of this were all seamers but in the last two years the spinners have come good and in a 33 match tournament being played across just two stadiums I’ve got to think the trend of spinners being favoured is going to continue.
Betting
Plenty of sides in this tournament have dosed themselves up with spinners. That is very much the right thing to do but they could all take wickets off each other so it might be worth hunting down a spinner from the sides who have not armed themselves with as many in the hope that they take a significant majority of the wickets for their team. That brings us to the St Lucia Zouks and St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
I don’t think the Patriots will make it out of the first stage of this competition so I’m looking at the Zouks where Zahir Khan is an interesting case. He played in this tournament for the Jamaica Tallawahs last season so he isn’t unknown to the event but he is still relatively new to it. He isn’t the only spinner on the Zouks ranks but I think he will be the most attacking one. Mohammad Nabi will be a defensive one used with the new ball I suspect. We’ve seen Zahir go well in the T20 Blast and the longer this tournament goes on the most impactful the Afghan could be. At 25/1 I think he’s worth a stab in the dark.
Tips
Back Z.Khan Top Season Bowler (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Betfair (1/4 1-4)
Back him here:
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