CPL 2020 started on Tuesday (18th August) morning with the match between Trinbago Knight Riders and the last season’s runners-up Guyana Amazon Warriors. Sunil Narine’s all-round performances helped Knight Riders to start the new CPL season with a victory.
After winning the toss in that delayed start due to the wet ground, Knight Riders captain Kieron Pollard decided to field first in that 17-overs per side game. The 18-year-old Knight Riders’ right-arm medium pacer Jayden Seales made his T20 debut during the CPL 2020 opener. Amazon Warriors scored 144/5 (17 overs) in the first innings while Knight Riders chased down that target in 16.4 overs after losing six wickets (147/6).
Match Report
Trinbago Knight Riders innings: Sunil Narine scored a 27-ball fifty
Chasing down the target, though the Knight Riders opener Lendl Simmons and the no.3-batsman Colin Munro both lost their wickets on 17 runs, another opener Sunil Narine started his innings incredibly. Narine completed his fifty in 27 balls and lost his wicket during facing the next delivery but only after his team reached the three-figure score. The Proteas leg-spinner Imran Tahir dismissed Narine on 50 runs off 28 balls (2 fours and 4 sixes).
Then, after the 22-run partnership for the fourth wicket between Darren Bravo and captain Kieron Pollard, Tahir took the wicket of Pollard (10) in his last over of the match.
In the next over, wicket-keeper Tim Seifert (2) lost his wicket as Keemo Paul scalped that wicket.
In the final over, when the Bravo brothers were batting, Knight Riders were five runs away from the victory. The set batsman Darren Bravo (30) lost his wicket on the third ball as Knight Riders then required three runs off the last three balls.
A wide and then a four from Dwayne Bravo was enough for the Knight Riders to win that match by four wickets with two balls to spare.
Imran Tahir (2/40) and Naveen-ul-Haq (2/21) managed to pick up two wickets each in that innings.
Guyana Amazon Warriors innings: Shimron Hetmyer played the knock of 63 not out off 44 balls
On the third ball of this tournament, pacer Ali Khan dismissed the most run-scorer of the CPL 2019, Brandon King for a three-ball duck. Another Amazon Warriors opener Chandrapaul Hemraj (3) also lost his wicket cheaply as the off-spinner Sunil Narine pocketed that wicket in his first over (fourth over of that innings).
For the third wicket, Shimron Hetmyer and Ross Taylor set up the 50-run partnership. After scoring 33 runs off 21 balls, Taylor was bowled by Narine.
Then, Hetmyer built up the 38 runs partnership with the wicket-keeper batsman Nicholas Pooran for the fourth wicket. T20 debutant Jayden Seales enjoyed his first T20 wicket after breaking that partnership by dismissing Pooran (18).
However, on the next ball, Hetmyer completed his half-century in 38 balls after hitting a sixer to the T20 debutant. Just two balls later, Dwayne Bravo dismissed Sherfane Rutherford for a duck.
At the late moment, Hetmyer and Keemo Paul added 27 runs for the unbroken sixth-wicket partnership. Though that partnership had only one sixer and one four and that too in the last over, there was no dot ball in that partnership. Hetmyer remained not out on 63 runs off 44 balls (2 fours and 2 sixes).
In that first innings of the CPL 2020, only Sunil Narine managed to claim more than one wicket as he finished with the incredible bowling figures of 4-0-19-2.
