Trinbago Knight Riders humbled Barbados Royals by 133 runs in the Royals’ first home game of the season. Earlier, the Royals won the toss and elected to bowl first. TKR openers - Mark Deyal and Martin Guptill - got off the mark as they stitched together 37 runs in the opening five overs.
Deadlock broken
Come the final over of the powerplay, homegrown star Jason Holder had one thing in sight - take a wicket. After conceding a boundary off his first delivery, Holder went full and bowled a superb yorker that inevitably snuck past Mark Deyal’s defences and hit the stumps.
Catch practice
Give the ball to Qais Ahmad, and the man can do just one thing - take wickets. A cunning ball to Nicholas Pooran saw the TKR batter try to muscle it, but it took a top edge and flew into the hands of the bowler.
Merwe puts the breaks
That’s the message Rovman Powell gave his bowlers amidst a 108-run partnership between Guptill and Kieron Pollard (46). And Roelof van der Merwe churned out a positive outcome from it, as his low-dipping full-toss delivery successfully got Pollard to mishit the ball, and it landed into the safe hands of Jason Holder at long-off.
Target locked: 195
Guptill’s 100 and two quick wickets at the end saw Trinbago Knight Riders settle for a score of 194/5 in 20 overs.
But, the 195-run chase was perhaps a much more tricky test as Andre Russell (3/13) and Sunil Narine (1/3) condemned the Barbados Royals to one of their worst starts. Openers Rahkeem Cornwall and Kyle Mayers failed to add runs on the scoreboard as Russell dismissed the duo in the opening four balls of the second innings. Thanks to Jason Holder, the Royals limped off to 30/4 at the end of the powerplay.
Moving forward, it was an uphill task to fight back as wickets kept tumbling in each passing over and at the end, Rovman Powell and Co. saw their innings brought to an end with a score of 61 in 12.1 overs.
The result meant Barbados Royals remain fifth on the points table with three points. They will quickly regroup to work on immediate improvements ahead of the game against Jamaica Tallawahs tomorrow, Friday, August 31.