The second part of the double header on the opening day of the CPL 2021 season sees the Barbados Royals taking on the team who are effectively the home side in this campaign in the form of St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
The Royals were the only team other than the Trinbago Knight Riders to have won this tournament in the last four years while the Patriots will be looking to utilise home advantage to the full so this should be a great way to conclude the opening day.
Barbados Royals
The first thing to note about the Barbados side is that they have changed name from the Barbados Tridents to the Barbados Royals after a takeover since last term. It will be interesting to see if that brings about a stronger intensity to win. If there is then the addition of Daniel Vettori to the coaching staff might be considered a questionable one but the Royals have recruited pretty well, although they will have to wait a few days to have a full squad available.
I always like the bowling attack of the Barbados side. They are always going to be well stocked in that department because Jason Holder balances the side so much. Where they have sometimes been found wanting is with the bat in hand so the addition of Glenn Phillips can only be described as a positive one. You get the impression that with potentially three spinners in their side the Royals will improve as the season goes on so any early wins they can pick up the better.
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots
Last season was a campaign to forget for the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots. It began terribly and never really got any better from there so they have to perform so much better this season. You would think with the signings they have made for this campaign that improvement would be natural. The fact there will be a crowd in at some point in the series should boost the Patriots even further, especially if their powerful batting gets going.
The Patriots haven’t been without their issues personnel wise with three overseas players pulling out quite late on after international commitments and featuring in other tournaments has taken the priority. When everyone is together though they do look a much stronger outfit than they did last season and shouldn’t be quite as reliant on one or two individuals as they were last term. You get the impression that the Patriots need to start ell to banish the memories of the previous campaign.
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Key Men
Glenn Phillips has been the leading batsman for the Jamaica Tallawahs for the last three seasons and he has swapped the yellow of Jamaica for the blue of Barbados. All eyes will be on him to see if he can go again after a fine spell in England recently.
Whenever Chris Gayle takes to the field there will inevitably be plenty of attention on him, but that is even more the case a couple of months from a World T20. He looks to have an excellent chance to showcase his talents ahead of that tournament.
Betting
The boundaries line looks a little on the high side here at 39.5. Usually this is a big hitting tournament but that generally comes in sixes where in most matches there are a lot more sixes than there are fours. We have seen in the first game that actually hitting the ball through this outfield is quite tough so that is only going to hamper the boundary hitting more, and if there is dew to slow it down further then fours might be tricky to come by.
In the first game we saw as many fours as sixes for much of the match and I sense we’ll get something similar here. Crucially both bowling attacks look to be good and have options in all the key parts of the innings. Both teams have opening pairs who can go big but the power hitting and genuine batting runs out quite quickly for both so if the bowlers can get stuck in early we might struggle to see 40 boundaries on a used pitch with a sluggish outfield.
Tips
Back Under 39.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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