By Prior Beharry
A BRILLIANT half-century by Kyle Mayers put a damper on the Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) in their first home game of the 2022 Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) before a partisan crowd at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on Tuesday evening.
TKR’s loss meant that the Barbados Royals kept their unbeaten run intact with six wins in this year’s competition thus far, making them a certainty for the playoffs in Guyana next week.
The Royals won the toss and elected to field with TKR allowing Nicholas Pooran to partner Tion Webster at the top of the order instead of Sunil Narine.
Pooran, made good with the confidence reposed in him, producing a top score of 52 from 43 balls with two fours and two sixes.
Narine batting at six with 30 from 31 balls had the only other notable score as TKR batsmen were mesmerized by a spell of bowling from Mujeeb Ur Rahman.
Fresh from the Asia Cup, the Afghanistan off-break bowler, finished with three wickets for 17 runs in his four overs. His first wicket of Tim Seifert was a beauty, pitching outside the off stump and then cutting back in to beat bat and pad.
Rahman also had TKR captain Kieron Pollard LBW. Pollard called for the decision to be reviewed but the Hawkeye and Ball Tracking system went down and the skipper had to walk off the field based on the umpire’s decision. Subsequently, the technology showed that the ball pitched inside the line and would have just clipped the leg stump, leaving it as umpire’s call.
TKR mustered only 132 all out in their 20 overs and it was never going to be enough.
Royals got off to a bad start with Rakeem Cornwall dropped in only the second ball of the innings by Andre Russell at Long Off from the bowling of Ravi Rampaul.
But Cornwall’s stay at the crease was short-lived as he was bowled by Daryn Dupavillon for one in the second over.
Click here to see photos of players and spectators at the game
But from then on it was the Mayers’ show with strokes all over the ground with the Barbadian taking advantage of the close-in fielders and going over the top of the cover region to secure boundaries.
He made 79 from 36 balls that included ten fours and five sixes, one of which off Narine landed on top of the Jeffrey Stollmeyer Stand.
Mayers is now the leading run-scorer in this year’s CPL overtaking Johnson Charles of the St Lucia Kings with 228 runs.
He was the only other batsman to go on the night as he held out to Pollard off the bowing of Dupavillon.
When Mayers departed in the 12th over, the Royals were 108 for two.
The South African pair of Corbin Bosch and Quinton de Kock saw Royals home with both unbeaten on 33 and 15 respectively.
In the end, the Royals won by eight wickets with four overs to spare.
It means that they have a maximum of 12 points. TKR are on three and at the bottom of the table with the worse run rate also.
They play Guyana Amazon Warriors, in the penultimate position, at 7 pm on Wednesday at the same venue hoping for a better result.
Barbados Royals 136/2 (Mayers 79, Bosch 33*; Dupavillon 2/30) beat Trinbago Knight Riders 132 (Pooran 52, Narine 30; Ur Rahman 3/17, Cornwall 2/27) by 8 wickets
