As part of its associated product line the internationally famous Canadian coffee company, Tim Hortons also sells donuts a very popular variety of which are known as ‘Timbits’; mini round donuts that are usually sold by the dozen. The Caribbean Premier League’s August 31 – September 3 return to Barbados’ Kensington Oval, regarded universally as the Mecca of West Indies cricket can, now therefore, be said to have provided a top twelve assortment of ‘Bimbits’.
The Barbados Royals played its four home matches, respectively against the Trinbago KinghtRiders, Jamaica Tallawahs, St Lucia Kings, and St Kitts Patriots during the CPL’s return to the Kensington Oval. The Royals’ win-loss record after its four home matches stood at 2-2. All four matches, however, provided highlights for those present in the stands or watching at home on television.
One of the most impressive factors was the outstanding crowd support the Royals received from the thousands who poured into Kensington’s stands to witness the matches. The Greenidge and Haynes Stand was almost completely jam-packed for all four match days. Filled to near capacity with supporters who noisily cheered every four and six that was struck by the Royals’ batters and each wicket taken by its bowlers. The support provided by and received from the Kensington Oval attending spectators should serve as a model that can, hopefully, be duplicated throughout the Caribbean next year when the West Indies team plays its 2024 T20 World Cup matches.
With regards to those matches, there were also outstanding performances by some individual players who all things remaining equal, will be expected to be members of the West Indies 2024 T20 World Cup squad. Jason Holder was outstanding in three of the Royals’ four matches, virtually carrying the team on his slender shoulders with his economic, wicket-taking productive bowling.
Holder captured 6 wickets for 152 runs from his 16 overs bowled in total during the Royals’ four home matches. He was by far the Royals’ very best bowler.
After losing its August 31 homecoming opening match against the Trinbago KnightRiders, during which they were dismissed for a paltry 61, the Royals rebounded the very next evening with a resounding victory over the defending champions, Jamaica Tallawahs. The backbone of that victory was a superlative, coming of T20 batting age, innings from the very young twenty-four-year-old Dominica-born Alick Athanaze playing in his debut CPL season.
Athanaze’s 48ball 76, which included seven fours and three sixes, was an absolute delight to witness, filled as it was with almost every one of the shots that are now part of T20 cricket’s inventory. There was even a scoop shot as well as a reverse sweep. Athanaze’s precocious batting should have served for his name to now be firmly inked in as a West Indies 15-man squad member for next year’s T20 World Cup.
One player whose name would have been indelibly written into the likely squad, even before he’d bowled a ball during this year’s CPL, is Alzarri Joseph. In a performance that set tongues wagging and which had even the thousands of Greenidge and Haynes Stand Royals supporters nodding their heads grudgingly in admiration, Joseph bowled with extreme pace and hostility to send three of the home team’s batters back to the Pavilion for next to nothing.
Joseph returned figures of 3/7 – 2.3 overs to help the St Lucia Kings dismiss the Royals for 105 in 17.5 overs. The Royals’ eventual 105/10 score was almost a hundred runs short of the 195 they’d been set for victory by the Kings.
The Royals demonstrated batting woes, against first the Trinbago Knight Riders and secondly the St Lucia Kings, was eventually corrected in its fourth and final home match. The September 3 encounter against the hapless points table cellar dwellers, St Kitts-Nevis Patriots. And who better to do so than the enigmatic giant Rakheem Cornwall?
As the Royals opener, Cornwall’s first three 2023 CPL home matches had produced scores of 0, 17, and 18. He, however, more than made up for all three of those shortcomings with a belligerent century against the beleaguered Patriots.
Cornwall’s whirlwind 102 was made off just 48 balls. It included four boundaries and twelve massive sixes. Cornwall’s ton helped the Royals to comfortably surpass the seemingly formidable 221 victory target the first strike Patriots had set.
Cornwall was eventually assisted by his captain Rovman Powell, who promoted himself to number four in the Royals’ batting order in a bold attempt to give their victory target run chase some much-needed momentum. Powell’s 26ball 49, containing five fours and three sixes, certainly provided the required momentum and it was perhaps most appropriate that it was him and Athanaze who were both at the crease when victory was achieved.
The batting order promotion was a redeeming moment for Powell. whose captaincy during the Royals previously played matches against the KnightRiders, Tallawahs and Kings had been somewhat lacking in astuteness! Powell’s on-field management of his bowlers at times left the local scribes in the Media Centre shaking their heads in disbelief, if not pulling their hair out in utter frustration.
While Powell’s captaincy may have been frustrating that of Hayley Matthews, the Barbados Royal’s Women’s captain, was by night and day comparison far more pleasing. Watching Matthews in the field was joyously akin to witnessing a very skilled lady General marshaling her troops with supreme confidence and demonstrated competency. Everything about Hayley Matthews as a cricketer is indeed often extremely pleasing to behold.
In every dozen-box of Tim Horton’s assorted Timbits there are always some varieties that aren’t as pleasing as the others, and as such are the very last to be consumed. Sometimes even not at all, left as they are to be subsequently discarded.
CPL’s 2023 Mecca homecoming was similarly characterized by some unpalatable “Bimbits.” Topping the list of those that would not have been on anyone’s favorite list was the continuing misery of the Royals’ opening batsman Kyle Mayers.
In his CPL’23 matches played to date, Mayers has recorded scores of 16, 31, 0, 4, 0 and 22! As one of the current West Indies all-format players in the Royals lineup much was expected of Mayers. His continuing run of paltry scores must, therefore, now be particularly concerning to both himself as well as his supporters.
Like Mayers, Obed McCoy is also a West Indies T20 player. In this his first full season back after an extended absence due to injury, McCoy was expected to spearhead the Royals bowling attack with his left-arm seam which when he’s at his very best can also be quite quick. Unfortunately, McCoy has been far from at his best during this year’s CPL matches, proving to be both un-penetrative and expensive to such a degree that he was eventually dropped from the starting XI for the Royals’ final home match against the Patriots.
Unfortunately for the Royals, their choice as McCoy’s replacement for the fixture against the Patriots proved to be even more expensive. Carlos “Remember The Name” Brathwaite’s four overs bowled went for 66 runs, the third most expensive spell ever in CPL’s now eleven-year history. It’s a spell that will now also be forever remembered, for all the wrong reasons.
Finally, to complete the number of unpleasing Bimbits there were the sights of totally ununiformed Kensington Oval groundsmen manning the covers for the rain interruption that occurred during the Royals – Kings match. There was also the unsavory sight of said “Mecca” groundsmen manually pushing single super soppers in a day and age when much larger, far more efficient, motorized versions are commonplace in most other major cricket venues around the world.
A dozen-pack of assorted Bimbites for consumption. The majority very tasty. A few somewhat less so