Saint Lucia Kings Team News
It’s been a funny old season for the Kings. They dropped Raheem Cornwall early on, a West Indies Test regular. Captain Faf du Plessis tended to either be brilliant or poor with the bat, before they lost him to a groin injury ahead of the Playoffs. It’s an issue also for CSK in the IPL, who don’t know when he’ll be fit.
They then discovered that Roston Chase is an ace number Four batsman, in addition to being a very handy all-rounder.
In the process they were also reminded that veteran South African David Wiese can really bowl (he took two five-fors during the tournament) and that Singaporean Tim David may well be the next batting superstar in T20s.
So a voyage of discovery for the St Lucia side that ended with them booking their place in a second successive L final, gaining revenge against the team that beat them in last year’s final, Trinbago.
On Tuesday they batted with real intent with Mark Deyal (78 off 44) the biggest contributor and all of Chase, David and Wiese also playing their part with the bat, to get them to a huge 205/4.
At times Trinbago looked like they had a chance but the score was too big and with Wiese taking those five wickets, TKR were always going to fall short.
Likely XI
Fletcher, Cornwall, Deyal, Chase, David, Wiese, Alleyne, Paul, Wahab, Royal, Joseph.
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots Team News
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots were one of the mystery sides in the competition. Mystery because they had the potential to be pretty awful or pretty brilliant.
In the semi they were brilliant against Guyana. The Amazon Warriors’ total of 178/9 may look big but the game was played on a good batting strip and in fact, they were probably 15 runs or so short.
It was a real team effort with the ball, with four different bowlers each taking two wickets.
Interestingly, none of them were for skipper Dwayne Bravo, because he didn’t bowl!
That suggests he’s not fit to bowl but he was important as skipper, especially with his decision to bowl first when winning the toss.
He was also important with the bat, surprisingly coming in at number three and playing a sensible 34 off 31.
In different circumstances that may have been a bit slow given it was a high-scoring game.
But Chris Gayle smashed 42 off 27. And Evin Lewis was even better: he scored an unbeaten 77 off 39 that included eight sixes, and was obviously man of the match.
Likely XI
Gayle, Lewis, Bravo, D Silva, Rutherford, Allen, Drakes, Cottrell, Shah, Jaggesar, Ahmed.
Venue & conditions
Warner Park witnessed two high-scoring semi-finals on Tuesday, further adding to the intrigue. Most people would have assumed that the wicket would have gotten more and more worn as the tournament progressed, with so many matches played on it. But think again.
So we may well have another high-scoring game in the final. It’s with noting that both games were won by the side batting second, which backs up the long-term trend of Warner Park being a good ground for the chaser.
