Six weeks and thirty matches since its August 16, St Lucia-hosted start, the 2023 Caribbean Premier League has now reached its Playoffs stage. Four franchises: the perennial final-bridesmaids-but-never-yet bride Guyana Amazon Warriors, defending champions Jamaica Tallawahs, upstart maiden title-seekers St Lucia Kings, and multi-occasion winners Trinbago KnightRiders will contest the Playoffs for passage to the September 24 tournament final.
CPL’s Playoffs will feature the top two teams from the preliminary round-robin stage, the Guyana Amazon Warriors and Trinbago Knight Riders contesting the September 20 Qualifier 1, the winner of which will progress directly to the September 24 final. All will not be lost for the loser, however, as they will get a second chance to progress to the final by facing the winner of the previous evening’s September 19 Jamaica Tallawahs – St Lucia Kings Eliminator 1 matchup.
So, which of the four franchises will prevail by going all the way to capture the coveted title as 2023 CPL champions? With T20 cricket being the lottery that it often proves itself to be, it’s anybody’s guess.
Based on their dominant record of eight wins, only a solitary loss, and one no-result from its ten Preliminary Round matches and having home-court advantage of playing in front of thousands of its noisily supportive fans, the Guyana Amazon Warriors would appear to be the team to beat! Could this finally be the year when the Warriors, who have reached the final on five previous occasions without ever having captured the title, ditches its perennial bridesmaid label to become the championship bride?
Led by the ultra-experienced T20 practitioner, the Pakistan-born, world-famous South African wrist spinner Imran Tahir, the Warriors certainly seem to have all the required components of a championship-winning team. Strong aggressive batting, penetrative bowling, and superbly supportive fielding.
CPL 2023’s Preliminary Round batting statistics featured two Warriors batters Shai Hope and Saim Ayub as the tournament’s then leading run scorers. Batting at number three, Hope had by then compiled 407 runs from ten matches at an ultra-impressive average of 58.14. His scores also included one century and as many as four half-centuries.
Playing in his maiden CPL season, the 21-year-old Pakistan-born Saim Ayub has been just as impressive. As the Warriors’ opening batter, Ayub’s Preliminary Round stats were 357 runs scored from ten innings for a 39.66 average with three half-centuries included.
Ayub (52) and Hope (51) also topped the charts for the combined number of boundaries scored by batters. As a testament to their respective power-hitting capabilities. Powered by those two at the top of its batting order the Warriors amassed totals of over 200 twice, while also surpassing 180 on an additional three occasions and reaching 177/5-18.2 overs on a sixth.
Shimron Hetmeyer (196/8-Avg.28) and Kemo Paul (164/6-Avg.41.00) also contributed very useful runs for the Warriors enroute to its Preliminary Round dominance. That dominance was also due, however, to the outstanding wicket-taking productivity of at least three Warriors bowlers. Daniel Pretorius, Imran Tahir, and Gudakesh Motie had each captured 10 wickets, while Romario Shepherd was only two behind with his tally of 10.
A key to the Warriors’ bowling success was the outstanding support provided by its fielders. Warriors’ fielders had taken well over 95% of the catches offered by opposing batsmen.
Strong, powerful batting, penetrative wicket-taking bowling backed by superb fielding. A powerhouse combination indeed and quite possibly championship- winning as well.
Coached again this year by the veteran former West Indies Test greats Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Sir Curtly Ambrose, the defending champions Jamaica Tallawahs will, however, be harboring aspirations of popping the Amazon Warriors CPL 2023 title hopes balloon. The Tallawahs ended the Preliminary Round with four wins, five losses, and one no-result from its ten matches played. Despite that unenviable record, however, the Tallawahs appeared to be peaking at just the right time. Just as they had done last year, when having also entered the Playoffs as the fourth-placed team they surprised everyone by storming to the title.
Jamaica’s Rovman Powell had been at the Tallawahs’ helm as its captain during the successful 2022 campaign. In one of the 2023 CPL’s preseason’s many unexpected developments, however, Powell defected to the Barbados Royals forcing the Tallawahs to appoint the previously untested Brandon King as his captaincy replacement.
King has done a highly commendable job so far. Leading by example as the Tallawahs’ second highest run scorer to date, marginally behind Imad Wasim’s 255 eight-match aggregate with his own of 253, while also managing his bowlers impressively well overall. Apart from Wasim and King, the Tallawahs have also gotten very useful runs from Shamarh Brooks (179/9), Alex Hales (178/5) and Fabian Allen (141/8).
Tallawah’s bowlers, particularly Mohammad Amir, Imad Wasim, Chris Greene and Salman Irshad have been equally impressive. Amir has so far captured 15 wickets, Wasim and Greene 13 each, while Irshad has taken 10.
Runs and wickets both coming from a variety of sources, also backed by superb fielding, headlined by two of the world’s very best Fabian Allen and Hayden Walsh, is not a combination to easily discounted. Even more so, when the two men pulling the coaching strings and planning strategies, Shiv Chanderpaul and Sir Curtly Ambrose, are as a head Coach-Assistant combination arguably the Caribbean region’s very best!
Daren Sammy was controversially appointed, ahead of the indisputably better qualified and more experienced Shiv Chanderpaul, as the West Indies T20I and ODI, white-ball, cricket Head Coach. Now doing double duty as the St Lucia Kings Head Coach , Sammy might possibly be wanting to prove a point when his charges clash with the Chanderpaul-coached Tallawahs in this year’s CPL Playoffs second Eliminator.
The Kings’ 4-4-2 Preliminary Round record of equivalent wins, losses, and two subsequently beneficial no-results was only marginally superior to that of the Tallawahs, as previously mentioned. The Kings’ 2023 campaign to date has, however, been hampered by inconsistency in both its batting and bowling departments, coupled with some very shoddy fielding.
Among the Kings’ batters, apart from the St Lucia “home boy” veteran Johnson Charles who scored 225 runs from seven innings, Colin Munro (14/5) was the only other batter with an over 150 runs aggregate. Much the same can be said of the Kings’ bowling with only two bowlers, Alzarri Joseph with 12 scalps from 9 matches at an economy rate of 7.39 and Roston Chase, 11/9 – 8.06, having captured more than 10 wickets so far. In addition, Joseph has already had so many catches dropped off his bowling as to become justifiably convinced that bowled and lbw might be the only modes of dismissal available to him!
The Tallawahs-Kings first Eliminator matchup will be exciting to watch. So too will the Guyana Amazon Warriors-Trinbago KnightRiders clash to determine who progresses directly to the final. The “chicken curry vs. curry chicken” rivalry, as it has long since been labelled by their respective legions of fans, has certainly been longstanding.
To date, the two franchises have met twenty-seven times in CPL matches. Of those the Trinis have won fourteen times while the Mudlanders have been victorious on eleven occasions. Further bragging rights will certainly, therefore, be at stake during their September 20 Eliminator 2 encounter.
With such very experienced batters as Martin Guptill (262/10-Avg. 32.75), Nicholas Pooran (257/8- Avg 36.71), Mark Deyal (197/8-Avg. 27.57) and skipper Kieron Pollard (192/8-Avg, 27,42) all among the runs and within its batting ranks, the KnightRiders will feel equally confident of posting formidable first-strike totals or successfully chasing set scores. The KnightRiders Achilles heel, this season may, however, be in its bowling. The veterans Andre Russell (11) and Sunil Narine (10) are the only KinghtRiders bowlers to have taken ten or more wickets thus far. More importantly, the others have also been going at unimpressive rates of well over seven runs and over.
Four teams, each with their respective strengths and weaknesses, are set to compete in CPL’s 2023 Playoffs matches. The eventual championship title-claiming winner of which will be anyone’s best guess!