Trinbago Knight Riders 185 for 3 (Bravo 54*, Munro 50, Pollard 41*, Nurse 1-20) beat Barbados Tridents 166 for 6 (Charles 52, Ahmed 1-14) by 19 runs

Half-centuries from Colin Munro and Darren Bravo, who also shared in a 98-run stand with Kieron Pollard, propelled the Trinbago Knight Riders to the highest score of this year’s CPL and the top of the points’ table. The defending champion Barbados Tridents made a fist of the chase, and were ahead of the required run-rate after the PowerPlay but could not sustain their scoring. They remain in the bottom half of the table.

Knight Riders picked up pace after a watchful start which brought just 27 runs in the first five overs. They scored at more than 10 runs an over for the remainder of their innings, giving Tridents a mountain to climb in response. Tridents’ innings played out in opposite fashion. They raced to 68 inside eight overs, thanks largely to Johnson Charles‘ 52, but then lost three wickets for seven runs, leaving the middle order with too much to do in the second half of the innings.

Nursing the scoring rate

Ashley Nurse was the first spinner Jason Holder turned to immediately after the Powerplay, just as Munro had started to free his arms, and he proved the most economical of the Tridents’ attack. Nurse found turn and grip on a wearing surface and would have had Sunil Narine’s wicket at the start of his second over but Shai Hope could not hold on to a thick outside edge. Narine only lasted until the next over anyway, as Nurse and Raymon Reifer kept the Knight Riders’ fairly quiet. Nurse was the only bowler to concede less than eight runs an over and was eventually rewarded when Munro slogged his final ball to deep midwicket, where Rashid Khan took a tumbling catch.

The One-Handed Six Specialist and his 3,000 run partner

Knight Riders entered the last four overs with a strong foundation of 116 for 3 and then upped the ante. Mitchell Santner’s only over cost 19 runs and included Pollard fetching a wide delivery with one hand to send it down the ground for six. At the end of the next over, Pollard pulled it off again, this time against Reifer, who bowled it too full. Pollard took his bottom-hand off the bat to get under the ball and hoist it over long-on. And in the over after that, Darren Bravo reached the milestone of 3,000 T20 runs when he belted a low-full toss from Jason Holder down the ground for four. The Knight Riders’ scored 69 runs in the last four overs, 52 of them in boundaries.

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