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Trinbago Knight Riders

about 3 years ago

Brief Scores: Trinbago Knight Riders 149 for 8 (Pollard 72, Simmons 32, Holder 2-27, Santner 1-13) beat Barbados Tridents 148 for 7 (Johnson Charles 47, Kyle Mayers 42, Raza 2-11, J. Seales 2-21, A. Hosein 2-30) by 2 wickets.


Toss: TKR won, chose to field
Man of The Match: Kieron Pollard

Our good fortune with the toss continued as we elected to field once more. The playing 11 had two changes, Jayden Seales was brought in for the injured Ali Khan and Akeal Hosein replaced DJ Bravo, who was given a much-needed rest.

After losing Hope’s wicket early on in the innings, Barbados Tridents’ Charles and Mayers struck up a crucial 51 run partnership that would help the Tridents put up a defendable score up on the board. However, Jayden Seales and Akeal Hosein soon proved that bringing them in for this face-off was the right choice. They both picked up 2 wickets each breaking two of the most worrying Trident partnerships. Sikandar Raza picked up a blistering 2-11 in the 17th over while Fawad Ahmed chipped in to keep the wickets falling. We finally managed to restrict the Tridents to 148 for 7 by the end of their innings.

It was a slow beginning to our innings as we lost a good chunk of our top-order before we reached 40. Unfortunate dismissals of Munro, DM Bravo, Seifert and Webster early on kept the pressure mounting on us, even as Lendl Simmons stuck at the crease to keep the score ticking.

By the time Kieron Pollard walked to the crease, the match was showing signs of having already slipped away, with 87 runs needed off 44 balls. With the top-order gone and five wickets in hand, the Skipper knew that his knock was the only thing standing between an undefeated streak and our first loss this season.

What followed might possibly go down as the most explosive batting performance of CPL 20. After cautiously seeing out the overs of the dangerous Mitchell Santner and Rashid Khan that left the Knights with a 16 run per over asking rate, Pollard took the rest of the bowlers to the cleaners. He single-handedly destroyed the Tridents’ death bowlers, launching nine massive maximums in a 28 ball blitzer that brought him to 72, even as Raza sacrificed his own wicket to keep the captain at the crease.

And then tragedy struck once again, when Pollard was run out in a bid to maintain strike. Knights Pierre & Seales stared at the target that was now 7 runs away that were needed off just 4 balls. Pierre’s sheer breadth of experience is what we believe helped him get the better of his nerves, as he dealt out a maximum and a boundary to tide the Knights over into a sixth consecutive victory that has brought us closer to #TheHomeRun. 

Kieron Pollard (On being Man of the Match & the Win): “I thought we left it too late when I walked in, but I knew we had a couple of overs to make up. I targeted the Hayden Walsh over and that's where the momentum turned for us. We lost early wickets and were four down, so it was a matter of consolidating. We had a plan, and sometimes we leave it too late, but all things being equal, we can get the sixes.

(On being asked about the innings being his best T20 performance) “It's up there. Today my striking ability came into play.”