The Caribbean Premier League regular season continues to wind down on Friday night when the Barbados Royals complete the first part of their CPL 2024 campaign when they take on the Trinbago Knight Riders at the Brian Lara Stadium.
These two teams both know that they will be involved in the finals but it will take something special for Barbados to make the top two from here but if the Knight Riders win their last two matches they still have a chance of the two goes at making the final that goes with finishing in the top two.
Trinbago Knight Riders
The Trinbago Knight Riders will have wanted to have done more damage in the home leg of their season than they have done so far but they still have one home match left which could set up a huge match with the Guyana Amazon Warriors for second spot should they win it. That comes here against a Barbados side who are fading a touch which will give the Knight Riders some confidence. They are only 2-2 for the home leg of their campaign which certainly isn’t what they would have been hoping for.
To be fair, the second of those losses came against the St Lucia Kings last time out and they are suddenly looking like the best team in the league so while there is no shame in losing that match, the huge margin of defeat will be a concern. Trinbago really need their batting to come back to the fore but if it does then there is still more than enough in their bowling attack for them to be a real force this season. That batting does need to fire consistently from here on in though.
Barbados Royals
Having looked like the team to beat in the tournament with five wins in their opening six matches and seemingly in complete control of a top two finish, the Barbados Royals now go into this match off the back of three straight losses and with their top two hopes in tatters. They need to win this by a huge margin and then hope that a lot of results go their way but the margins involved would make the likelihood of that unlikely. At this point just getting back to winning ways will be a welcome sight for the Royals. They don’t want to head into the finals with four straight losses to their name.
If that us going to change then they need a complete performance. The first two losses in this run was down to their batters letting them down but then in the last game the batters delivered a stronger showing and their bowlers got carted to all parts. They need to put the two facets together and look to build up some confidence to take into the finals with them. We saw in the early stage of the season that this team is good enough to win this competition but suddenly not enough of their big players are showing the sort of form needed to deliver the goods.
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Key Players
Regardless of whether they finish second or not the Trinbago Knight Riders have a couple of matches to look to get Andre Russell into the sort of form which could allow him to be a key player in the playoffs. He might be given freedom to tee off with a few more overs to spare here.
Roman Powell has offered brief glimpses of what he can deliver in this tournament but not recently and certainly not often enough. Barbados Royals will hope their captain can have a day out and get him in good nick heading into what looks like being a knockout playoff match.
Betting
We have generally seen the pitches at the Brian Lara Stadium be very good for batting in this tournament and with this being a Friday night and the last game on this ground I would expect the pitch to play well again here and as such I think we could see plenty of sixes. The first game between these two in Barbados was a low scoring match where neither side scored 160 but there were 14 sixes in that match.
Both teams are already through to the finals so there is no competitive pressure on them as a result here which means that both can just look at getting their gun batters back into form so with that in mind I would expect the sixes to flow here. The line is only at 15.5 for this one which when you consider who we have batting for us, coupled with there being 14 in a low scoring first game between the two feels a little on the low side. The two matches here so far have had 22 and 19 sixes in them so there is enough evidence to think we can get 16 more here.
Tips
Back Over 15.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with Betway
