The Caribbean Premier League heads back to Warner Park on Friday night for the penultimate game of the CPL 2024 season on this ground between the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots and the Barbados Royals.
This is the second to last home game of the season for the Patriots and as yet they haven’t taken advantage of this leg of the campaign so they need a win here. The Royals will be very nicely placed if they come out on top.
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots
It looked like the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots were building up to having a decent season when they came out on top in their opening match. The form of that win hasn’t really worked out too well though and the team form since then has been something of a disaster. They have lost all three home matches that they have played and in truth they have been taken to the cleaners in all three. It goes without saying that a huge improvement is needed here.
That improvement needs to come with the ball where so far they have had no answers to any batter who has got in on this ground. They have shipped scores of 250/4, 202/5 and 266/7 in the three games here and they aren’t winning anything conceding those sorts of totals. To their credit, in all three matches here they have scored 200+ so if their bowlers can keep things a bit tighter they have the batting form to get the job done in this one. You get the feeling personnel will need to change with the ball for that to happen.
Barbados Royals
The Barbados Royals have only played one match in this campaign so far and they couldn’t have won it any more emphatically if they had tried. They only beat a poor looking Antigua and Barbuda Falcons side but it was more the manner in which they beat them rather than who they beat. To have picked up a road win and most likely have a fair bit of natural improvement in them bodes well. A second win here would have them sitting very pretty.
I think when the season started most judges would have expected Barbados to be pretty strong with the bat but the questions would have been with the ball in hand. That was probably how you would expect it to be anyway given how good the pitches are for batting on their home ground. Although we only saw three batters in that first game the batting clearly does look strong. We will find out in this match just how good they are with the ball but if they can deliver in that department too then this could be a very strong season for the Barbados outfit.
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Key Players
Andre Fletcher reminded everyone why he has had such a decent career in the last game on this ground. He gave himself a bit of time to get in before exploding into life and the Patriots could do with another big innings from their captain here if they are to win the game.
You wonder if Quinton de Kock will be able to deliver when the pitches start tiring in this tournament. That is for later but for now there is no reason why the Barbados opener can’t make hay on good batting tracks. The Royals will hope that he can do exactly that here.
Betting
I’ll stick with the bet which has served me well in this tournament already against the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots and that is for the Barbados Royals to hit more than 11.5 sixes. I mentioned in the game against the Amazon Warriors that the Patriots just can’t bowl anywhere to keep the ball in the park. The first two innings they bowled here they conceded 17 and 12 sixes and then they completely fell apart against Guyana where they shipped a ridiculous 23 sixes so this bowling attack is shot to pieces.
The Barbados Royals sixes line for this one is 11.5 which you would think would look a little high until you saw those statistics. The danger to it is that they bowl first and St Kitts and Nevis don’t score many but they’ve scored 200 in all three games here so even if they only make say 170 this is such a small ground where a dozen sixes isn’t out of the question. We have Rakheem Cornwall opening the batting here and he won’t be running many singles but around him Quinton de Kock, Rovman Powell and Jason Holder among others are big six hitters. This attack looks like it is going to go the distance again.
Tips
Back Barbados Royals – Over 11.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Bet365
