That marks the end of our coverage from the 12th match of CPL 2024 between St Lucia Kings and Trinbago Knight Riders. For now, this is Saptak Sanyal, signing off on behalf of my co-commentator Ajay Pal Singh and our scorer/analyst Dushyant Madhukar Kumar. Have a good day.
Kieron Pollard (Trinbago Knight Riders Captain): "Good fight from both sides. I guess we gave away 15-20 runs in the end that went our way. Fielding, dropping catches are never good. It is unacceptable. Even the senior guys were spilling catches.
You can be outskilled but fielding is something you can control and need to work on to improve.
Narine is a champion bowler, bowling three overs in the back end is never easy. But he has been doing that for us for a long time.
To be able to play cricket around in the Caribbean is wonderful. The young guy (Shaqkere Parris) batted well. Not many knew him before this game but now a lot of people will be talking about him."
Faf du Plessis(St Lucia Kings Captain): "It has been a great game of crickt. Quality powerplay from both the teams. Disappointed to concede 70 odd in the first six overs but I think we should have scored over 190. After that, it was a great comeback from everyone.
Fielding here is challenging. The margins between the teams are very low. I think in this tournament, everyone gives their best and the teams are very close.
We have a game on Thursday and I think we are taking a few positives away from this game. We need to discuss the shortcomings and regroup before that game."
Kieron Pollard (Player of the Match, Trinbago Knight Riders Captain): "Obviously for someone who has played for the West Indies, captained them and played a lot here in St Lucia and coming out to bat to boos like that, I wanted to give something to the crowd. (on his response to the St Lucia crowd after winning the game).
It was a great start. Young Shaq started well, showing his class from ball one. He set the tempo for us. Each and every one of us has to do our part. Everyone has been given responsibilities. Mine is to finish the game.
Love to see the young players do well. We continue to do that until I call it quits. I'd like to give youngsters opportunities to express themselves."
Player of the Match: Kieron Pollard
08:10 IST and 22:40 Local Time | We have seen a breathtaking captain's knock from the TKR skipper Kieron Pollard and TKR have continued their dominance over the St Lucia Kings. They have won this game by 4 wickets.
Johnson Charles' stormy 29-run knock off 14 balls kept the SLK side on top since the start. His opening partner, skipper Faf du Plessis also contributed 34 off 26 balls with 1 fours and 3 sixes. Debutant Shadrack Descarte got out for a golden duck and after that, Roston Chase and Bhanuka Rajapaka then started playing singles to play out Narine and Salamkheil. They added 80 runs in their partnership in just 58 balls to place their team to a comfortable position. Bhanuka hit 3 maximums to score 33 runs from 29 balls and his partnership with Chase became the crucial one. Chase kept his nerves throughout the innings and played a composed knock of 56 from 40 balls with 2 fours and 3 sixes. Cameo knocks from Tim Seifert and Matthew Forde helped the SLK side to reach the 180-run mark.
Two TKR spinners, Sunil Narie and Waqar Salamkheil took 2 wickets each but Narine conceded just 13 runs from his 4 overs! Terrance Hinds and Kieron Pollard took one wicket each.
Coming to chase the run, both the TKR openers got the start but none of them made it big. Narine got out for 14 and Roy could manage only 16 runs beside his name. But Shaqkere Parris showed his batting prowess right from the start. He got off the mark with a maximum and continued to hit maximums whenever he got a loose delivery. Nicholas Pooran also hit two maximums but his innings was cut short by Shadrack Descarte for 17. In the middle overs, TKR got a tad slow as Keacy Carty struggled throughout his innings. Parris got out for 57 facing 33 balls with 1 four and 6 maximums. Carty played 22 balls to score only 15 runs.
In the death overs, the equation for the Trinbago Knight Riders was down to 27 from the final two overs with Matthew Forde to bowl the crucial over. Kieron Pollard hit him for a hat-trick of maximums in the final three balls of the over and scored 24 runs with 4 maximums to take the equation down to 3 from the final over. Akeal Hosein finished the game with a boundary in the first ball of the final over bowled by Alzarri Joseph.
Noor Ahmad took 2 wickets for 35 runs and Forde also took 2 wickets but he got smoked by KR skipper and ended conceding 49 runs. Khari Campbell, the CPL debutant and Shadrack Descarte took one wicket each.