Which team won the CPL 2020 and how. Find out all that’s there to know!
Trinbago Knight Riders emerged as the winners of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2020 title after comfortably beating St Lucia Zouks by eight wickets. This was the fourth time that Trinbago Knight Riders won the CPL title, making them the league’s most successful team by a considerable margin.
St Lucia Zouks batted first in the final match and set a target of 155 runs in 20 overs for Trinbago Knight Riders. Andre Fletcher was the top scorer for St Lucia Zouks, having scored 39 runs on 27 balls. Key contributions came from Mark Deyal (29 runs), Najibullah Zadran (24 runs), and Roston Chase (22 runs).
Tight bowling by Trinbago Knight Riders ensured St Lucia Zouks lost all their ten wickets within 20 overs. Kieron Pollard was the destroyer-in-chief, as he took 4 wickets, including those of Fletcher, Chase, and Zadran. Ali Khan and Fawad Ahmed took 2 wickets each.
While chasing, Trinbago Knight Riders got initial hiccups when they lost the wickets of Tion Webster and Tim Seifert cheaply. But that was all that the bowlers of St Lucia Zouks could do. Subsequently, Lendl Simmons and Darren Bravo went about chasing business with clinical precision.
Simmons scored 84 runs off just 49 deliveries, including 4 sixes and 8 fours. On the other hand, Bravo scored 58 runs off 47 deliveries, hammering 6 sixes. As a result, Trinbago Knight Riders won with 11 balls to spare.
Trinbago Knight Riders’ route to Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2020 title
Trinbago Knight Riders had a great run in the CPL 2020 tournament. The team did not lose even one match of the 12 games it played. It won most of its matches comfortably, reminding everyone why it is the league’s most successful team.
Trinbago Knight Riders won all 10 matches of the league stage. Compared to that, the second positioned team at the league stage – Guyana Amazon Warriors – could win only 6 of the 10 games.
The following table shows how Trinbago Knight Riders won all the 10 league matches.
| Date | Match | Result |
| 18-Aug-20 | Guyana Amazon Warriors vs Trinbago Knight Riders | Trinbago Knight Riders won by 4 wickets |
| 20-Aug-20 | Jamaica Tallawahs vs Trinbago Knight Riders | Trinbago Knight Riders won by 7 wickets |
| 23-Aug-20 | Barbados Tridents vs Trinbago Knight Riders | Trinbago Knight Riders won by 19 runs |
| 26-Aug-20 | Trinbago Knight Riders vs St Lucia Zouks |
Trinbago Knight Riders won by 6 wickets |
| 27-Aug-20 | Trinbago Knight Riders vs Guyana Amazon Warriors | Trinbago Knight Riders won by 7 wickets |
| 29-Aug-20 | Barbados Tridents vs Trinbago Knight Riders |
Trinbago Knight Riders won by 2 wickets |
| 01-Sep-20 | Jamaica Tallawahs vs Trinbago Knight Riders | Trinbago Knight Riders won by 19 runs |
| 02-Sep-20 | St Kitts & Nevis Patriots vs Trinbago Knight Riders | Trinbago Knight Riders won by 59 runs |
| 05-Sep-20 | St Lucia Zouks vs Trinbago Knight Riders | Trinbago Knight Riders won by 23 runs |
| 06-Sep-20 | Trinbago Knight Riders vs St Kitts & Nevis Patriots | Trinbago Knight Riders won by 9 wickets |
As the table shows, the margin of victory was slim (2 wickets) only in one match against Barbados Tridents that was played on August 29, 2020. In all other matches, Trinbago Knight Riders won easily.
In fact, hardly anyone expected them to win that particular match against Barbados Tridents. Trinbago Knight Riders was chasing 149 on a slow pitch and had lost 5 wickets for just 62 runs.
The pitch was slow even as 87 more runs were needed to win off just 44 deliveries. But then Kieron Pollard walked in and scored 72 runs off just 28 balls, winning the match for his team.
Players like Sunil Narine, Colin Munro, Dwayne Bravo, Khary Pierre, and Lendl Simmons played a vital role in other matches to help Trinbago Knight Riders win.
Sunil Narine was adjudged the ‘Player of the Match’ in two games for his outstanding performance. Narine showed his talent both with the ball and bat to win matches for his team. In a match against Guyana Amazon Warriors, he scored 50 runs off just 28 balls and took 2 wickets as well.
In another match against Jamaica Tallawahs, Narine scored 53 runs off 38 deliveries to win the match for his team. Similarly, Colin Munro was declared ‘Player of the Match’ in two matches for scoring a half-century against Barbados Tridents in one match and making 65 runs against Jamaica Tallawahs in another match.
Trinbago Knight Riders has a line-up of superbly talented players. Nowhere was it more evident than in the semi-final clash against Jamaica Tallawahs.
In that match, Trinbago Knight Riders’ two left-arm spinners, Akeal Hosein and Khary Pierre took five wickets combined to crush the opposition’s batsmen. As a result, Jamaica Tallawahs could score only 107 runs, a score not exactly worthy of a semi-final contest.
Later, Trinbago Knight Riders’ batsman took it upon themselves to hammer the bowlers of Jamaica Tallawahs all over the park. Doing so, Lendl Simmons scored 54 runs, and Tion Webster scored 44 runs to take their team to victory when five overs were yet to be bowled.
How’s Trinbago Knight Riders likely to perform in CPL 2021?
For CPL 2021, Trinbago Knight Riders has retained 12 players from its title-winning squad of the previous year. These include Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine, Colin Munro, Darren Bravo, Lendl Simmons, Khary Pierre, Sikandar Raza, Anderson Phillip, Tion Webster, Akeal Hosein, Jayden Seales, and Ali Khan.
That’s a wise decision because most of these players have proved themselves to be match-winners. Meanwhile, Trinbago Knight Riders accepted the request of Dwayne Bravo, who had been a key player, to move to St Kitts & Nevis Patriots. Trinbago Knight Riders still has a formidable line-up, which is expected to perform well in Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2021.
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