David Miller unleashed a frenetic 17-ball 50 as Barbados Royals thumped Trinbago Knight Riders by nine wickets in the CPL eliminator at the Providence Stadium, Guyana. With the second innings reduced to a five-overs contest due to floodlight failure, Royals were set a target of 60 which seemed a challenge but David Miller‘s fanatic innings made mockery of the revised target.
A two hour delay whilst the light was fixed saw the Barbados Royals set a revised target of 60 runs in five overs. The Royals made short work of the chase, David Miller almost single-handedly getting his side over the line with four balls to spare by hitting a brutal 17 ball fifty that included five sixes and three fours.
Pitch and Toss
The surface at the Providence Stadium in Guyana will likely have a lot to offer to the batters. The average first innings total in the last five T20 matches at this venue has been almost 190 runs. The team winning the toss might opt to bowl.
Trinbago Knight Riders skipper Kieron Pollard won the toss and chose to bat with two changes in the Playing XI bringing in Sunil Narine and Chris Jordan for Shaqkere Parris and Nathan Edwards. Barbados Royals skipper Rovman Powell fielding first also made two changes to his playing XI bringing in Rahkeem Cornwall and Obed McCoy.
Nicholas Pooran’s 60 ball 91 powers TKR to 168 for 3
Trinbago Knight Riders won the toss and batted first, amassing 168/3 off 19.1 overs before the lights went out. Nicholas Pooran scored a masterful 91 not out off 60 balls to anchor their efforts with captain Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell adding support at the end of the innings with 17 and 20 runs respectively. Jason Roy assisted Pooran from the top of the order with 25 off 17 balls after the early dismissal of Sunil Narine – bowled by Theekshana off the third ball of the match.
Although not picking up many wickets, the Royals bowled well to limit the damage and keep the Knight Riders in check, a target of 163 would be chaseable if their own batting card fired. While the chase was one-way traffic, Royals were actually on the brink of elimination due to the floodlight failure.
It came about with five balls left in the Knight Riders innings as Nicholas Pooran (91* off 60) was eyeing his second successive T20 ton. The dynamic left-hander once again rose to the occasion with a well-paced innings as the other batters rallied around him. However, nobody else got any tempo to their innings although Jason Roy (25 off 17) did strike a few boundaries in the Powerplay.
The big hitters in Kieron Pollard (17 off 19) and Andre Russell (20* off 18) struggled to find their timing. Royals’ bowlers on their part used the surface smartly, taking pace off and hitting the hard lengths to force mistimed strokes. They did lose their plot a bit towards the end but Naveen-ul-Haq (1-25) put in a standout performance as he optimized the conditions perfectly.
TKR were guilty of not maximizing their batting resources as they failed to really hit top gear. While Royals’ bowlers need to be credited for their discipline, TKR could have also done with a bit more intent. Once the floodlight failure had happened to one of the towers, the game had to be stopped for close to two hours. During this period, there were growing concerns of an abandonment, in which case TKR would have progressed due to their higher position on the points table.
With barely a few minutes left for the cut-off time for a five-over chase, luck smiled on the Royals as the floodlights started to work again. A shortened chase was ideal for them, given the conditions and the power hitters they have. In the end, they needed just one man to do the job as David Miller sent TKR packing.
David Miller’s 17 ball 50 blasts Barbados Royals to victory vs Trinbago Knight Riders
After it looked like their 2024 campaign was going to be cruelly derailed by the floodlight failure, the Royals would have been mightily relieved to get back on the park and have the chance to keep their destiny in their own hands.
Their revised chase was a frenetic and exhilarating affair. Sunil Narine cleaned up Quinton de Kock with the third ball of the first over, a beautifully flighted delivery that clipped the bails and left the batter bamboozled. The ball before had been clobbered for four runs by de Kock and David Miller hit the next delivery after the wicket for a towering six over midwicket. It was a sign of things to come.
David Miller came into his own in the shortened chase, cutting Chris Jordan away for four over point before slog sweeping Narine for a huge 106 meter six off the next over. With two overs left the Royals needed 25 runs to progress. David Miller kept his cool, consecutive fours off overpitched deliveries from Jordan were followed by a full toss by the beleaguered bowler that was clubbed for six down the ground. The penultimate over costing the Knight Riders 17 runs.
With 8 needed off the last over David Miller smashed back-to-back sixes off Terence Hinds to finish the match in emphatic fashion, claiming the Player of the Match award and booking the Barbados Royals a place in the second eliminator after a dramatic night in Guyana.
David Miller unleashed a frenetic 17-ball 50 as Barbados Royals thumped Trinbago Knight Riders by nine wickets in the CPL eliminator at the Providence Stadium, Guyana. With the second innings reduced to a five-overs contest due to floodlight failure, Royals were set a target of 60 which seemed a challenge.
Rovman Powell opted to open the innings with the in-form Quinton de Kock but the latter perished to Sunil Narine just after hitting a boundary. It was a huge breakthrough for the Knight Riders but Miller walked in at No.3 to make a mockery of the run chase.
David Miller started with a cross-batted swipe against Narine in the same over and struck four more sixes in his stay while also hitting three boundaries. Powell, who appeared rusty, was reduced to a mere second fiddle as David Miller tore into TKR’s bowlers.
The Royals captain was also fortunate to survive against Chris Jordan who induced a mishit for the caught and bowled, only for replays to show a front foot no-ball. Powell himself was able to smash a six in the same over but the chase was all about David Miller’s carnage as the game was done with four balls to spare.
Brief scores: Trinbago Knight Riders 163/5 in 19.1 overs (Nicholas Pooran 91*; Naveen-ul-Haq 1-25) lost to Barbados Royals 64/1 in 4.2 overs (David Miller 50*; Sunil Narine 1-22) by nine wickets (DLS method)
Presentations and Road Ahead
Rovman Powell the winning skipper said : It’s a case of us getting lucky tonight to be honest. At one point, we thought we were out of the competition when the light started giving problems. Once the light came back on, it was our game to lose. 5 overs, 60 runs, not very difficult. It was a case of me and Quinny (de Kock) trying to take on those two overs of powerplay, see if we can get a good start.
If in the first two overs, you get 25-30 runs, you’re halfway there already. Credit has to be given to David (Miller), he came in and he struck it from ball one. It’s a difficult one, it’s unfortunate that lights went off. It would have been a beautiful game of cricket but I would say that those things happen.
It’s just unfortunate for a good TKR team to be on the wrong side of luck tonight, but nevertheless I will take it with my team. If there’s a bright light for my team throughout the competition, it’s our bowling department. Each and every game, we have bowled fantastic. It’s for our batters to stand up and be counted.
We got a little bit of luck tonight. We were wondering when our luck was going to change. Coming into the playoffs and to win CPL, you need a little bit of luck. Good that we got a little bit tonight. I am sure that the guys are upbeat from this performance. We showed that we can still win games of cricket. Hopefully, come Friday, we can play another good game.
Kieron Pollard the losing skipper said : (Discussions between the captains and the umpires when the lights went off) At that time, they were speaking the rules if the light doesn’t come back on. Playing conditions and all of that, the time that is allotted for us to get a match. Just normal things that you speak about in unforeseen circumstances. (Any consideration as to play with one light tower not working) The conversation and the question was asked.
But when you look at the conditions, it was dark and it was going to be dangerous for both teams. If someone was to get injured in that light or whatever the case is for the sake of cricket, then it would have been hard. At the end of the day, the ground staff and the persons in charge did what they had to do in order to get a game of cricket in. Obviously with the rules, we got a game and here we are now.
You prepare for any circumstance. If it had rained, it would have been the same. Once the light was on, we were always ready and willing to play within the rules and regulations of the game. They had a target of 60 to chase and well batted by Miller. (This season) Still proud of the guys. From the inception, we had a lot of injuries coming into this tournament. The guys came out and played consistently to get to where we got – 14 points out of 10 games.
Normally you finish on top-two with that. You have to be proud of the guys and the way they performed. We saw the class of Nicky P today again, batting on a tough wicket and getting us to a decent total at that point of time with five deliveries to go. It was always going to be difficult for Barbados to chase that but certain things happened which we had no control over.
(On Pooran) Obviously proud, the way he has come as an individual, circumstances he had to go through, the dedication and determination that he continues to show and give to cricket, it’s paramount.
He’s an example for some of the youths coming through the ranks in West Indies cricket if they want to do well. You’ve got to be determined and disciplined. He came out and showed that he’s a step above the rest in terms of class and consistency. Well played to him and well played to the entire team, we fought till the end.
David Miller Player of the Match for his 17 ball 50 said : I supposed so, nice to hit a few off the middle, but you have no option when it’s a 5-over game. We were talking about the lights (during the break), wondering if it was going to be back on, thankfully it came back on in the nick of time. 60 in 5 overs, you have 11 batters and you’ll need to target every single ball, it feels nice that it came off (tonight).
We had no option and were pretty thankful for it coming off. It’s a Quarter-final (when asked if this chase brought back memories of the T20 WC final against India), it didn’t add up to the World Cup final, it was a situation where we thought we weren’t going to play and were happy to end the match on a winning note.
We now move to the semis, we’ve played well at times and played badly as well (on his thoughts about the performance so far in #CPL2024), but we’ll hope to take the momentum into the semis game. I wasn’t well, but thankfully it’s over now and we’ll look forward to the next match.
Barbados Royals are through to Qualifier 2 and Trinbago Knight Riders are out of the competition. Despair for the four-time champions while the Royals are cock-a-hoop. With the floodlight failure, it would have been a frustrating wait for Barbados as they would have been knocked out if the game hadn’t restarted. But that was issue was fixed just in time for us to witness a 5-over chase and suddenly it became advantage Barbados.
Narine removed QdK in the first over, Miller walked in at three and wasted no time to get going. Powell got a reprieve on 2 and TKR couldn’t create any more chances. Jordan kept trying the yorkers, he nailed few but whenever he erred, Miller pounced. 17 runs came off the penultimate over and with just 8 needed off the final over, Killer Miller finished the proceedings with back-to-back sixes and recorded a 17-ball half-ton as well in the process.
Barbados Royals end their four-match losing streak! It looked like their campaign would end on an unfortunate note when there was no play possible for close to two hours due to floodlight failure. In fact, the cut-off time for a 5-over chase was extended by nine minutes and that turned out to be the difference between them getting knocked out and staying alive in the competition. You got to feel for TKR though.
They came into this match on the back of two big wins, an in-form Pooran looked well set to notch up his second century in as many outings but their innings was cut short by 5 balls. And in the end, they had to defend 60 runs in 5 overs which was always going to be tough. Curtains down on this Eliminator. Let’s hope that the floodlight issue doesn’t repeat as all the remaining three matches have to be played at this venue. The next match at this venue would be Qualifier 1 between- Guyana Amazon Warriors vs Saint Lucia Kings.