Back-to-back wins lift TKR to Top position
Brief Scores: Trinbago Knight Riders 136 for 3 (Narine 53, Munro 49*, Mujeeb 1-13, Edwards 1-19) beat Jamaica Tallawahs 135 for 8 (Phillips 58, Andre Russell 25, Seales 2-21, Ali Khan 2-25) by seven wickets.
Toss: TKR won, chose to field
Man of The Match: Sunil Narine (TKR)
Trinbago Knight Riders banked a second consecutive win in the 2020 Caribbean Premier League season with a more than comfortable 7-wicket victory over Jamaica Tallawahs on Friday (August 20) at the Brian Lara Cricket Stadium.
Sunil Narine was once again the star performer, putting on a remarkable performance with both ball (1/19) and bat. TKR easily chased down the target of 136 with 7 wickets and 11 balls to spare.
On another rain-affected day with a short delay, Pollard made the right call again by electing to bowl first after winning the toss. The only change in the playing 11 was to accommodate Khary Pierre who’s knowledge and experience against the Tallawahs from past seasons.
Pollard’s decision was quickly justified by fiery opening spells from Ali Khan and Jayden Seales, which saw them taking 3 wickets before the power play finished.
This set the tone for the impressive bowling display of TKR for the rest of the innings. Ali Khan and Jayden Seales bagged 2 wickets each, while Narine, Fawad Ahmed, and Dwayne Bravo chipped in with a wicket each at crucial stages of the match. Bravo now stands at the cusp of his 500th T20 wicket. The valiant efforts of Glenn Phillips (58 off 42) helped the Tallawahs set a modest target of 136, while the rest of batsmen including Dre-Russ struggled to make an impact against the inspired TKR bowling attack.
We lost the wicket of Lendl Simmons early on, almost mirroring the Tallawahs start, but quickly regaining composure with the help of Narine (53 off 38) and Munro’s (49* off 46) crucial knocks , that brought us closer to the target. DM Bravo and Pollard put on impressive cameos to help us breeze past the target with 7 wickets to spare.
Kieron Pollard (on the win and the young Seales): "What was evident for us today was execution against the power hitters. I thought that was brilliant, but it was set up by the excellent opening spell from Ali Khan and the youngster Jayden Seales. We want to try to protect (Seales) as much as possible but in the heat of the moment sometimes you have to throw him into the fire. The couple times he has come on, he has shown the capacity to handle that sort of pressure."
Sunil Narine (Man of the Match): "I've been training. It’s good to go out there and perform, so your hard work is not in vain. But it's just the start of the tournament. I'd like it to continue, because I do well at the start of tournaments and don't carry on but my aim is to try to continue as much as possible and see how much I can really do. "