We are down to the last three teams in the 2023 edi­tion of the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL).

It feels like such a long time since the fans in the re­gion wit­nessed the first game be­tween the Ja­maica Tallawahs (JT) and the St Lu­cia Kings (SLK). Be­fore we look at the three teams in what is ex­pect­ed to be two thrilling games, let us look back at the per­for­mances of the teams that did not get in­to the fi­nal three.

Inar­guably, the worst-per­form­ing team was the St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots (SKNP). To be frank, they were ab­solute­ly hor­ren­dous. When you look at the names of the play­ers rep­re­sent­ing SKNP, you are left to won­der just how a team laden with such tal­ent could let down the sup­port­ers of St Kitts and Nevis. Be­fore the tour­na­ment, I thought they could squeeze in­to the last four. They pos­sessed a dy­nam­ic open­ing pair in An­dre Fletch­er and Evin Lewis. Fletch­er got some ex­cel­lent scores, in­clud­ing a cen­tu­ry. How­ev­er, Lewis was nev­er re­al­ly fired; we all know he is a qual­i­ty play­er but nev­er ap­peared to be mo­ti­vat­ed. Of the oth­ers, Sher­fane Ruther­ford was not as con­sis­tent as he could have been, and both Corbin Bosch and Will Smeed some­times con­tributed with the bat, but their bowl­ing was shock­ing to wit­ness.

How can an at­tack with the likes of Bosch, Os­hane Thomas, Do­minic Drakes, George Linde etc. not de­fend 220 runs, not once, but on an­oth­er oc­ca­sion and add to the mix Ash­mead Nedd, Izharul­haq Naveed, to those al­ready men­tioned, could not de­fend 197 runs? Be­sides Bosch, the oth­er over­seas play­ers that played for the SKNP nev­er cov­ered them­selves in glo­ry. The own­ers of this fran­chise have to take a long, hard look at the over­seas play­ers com­ing in­to this team. The big­ger prob­lem, how­ev­er, was that they need­ed prop­er lead­er­ship, di­rec­tion and a pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach. If they are to re­bound in 2024, they have to make dras­tic changes.

Bar­ba­dos Roy­als (BR) was an­oth­er huge dis­ap­point­ment. They start­ed with a loss against the SLK and on­ly bat­ted well against the in­ept bowl­ing at­tack of the SKNP. Their on­ly oth­er vic­to­ry was against the JT when they chased 160 runs and won with six balls to spare. Too much de­pend­ed on the open­ing pair of Kyle May­ers, who was dis­ap­point­ing, and Rah­keem Corn­wall, who, let's be hon­est, can get out at any time with the way he plays crick­et. I have a lot of time for Al­ick Athanaze, but too much ear­ly pres­sure was put on this young man’s shoul­ders.

Skip­per Rov­man Pow­ell was ex­pect­ed to come in and fin­ish off teams with a pow­er­ful bat­ting dis­play, and he did it on a cou­ple of oc­ca­sions. Still, when he was sixth out against the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (GAW), run out by a bril­liant bit of field­ing by Ju­nior Sin­clair, the BR need­ed 30 runs in three overs with four wick­ets re­main­ing. When they need­ed six runs off the last over with Justin Greaves and Car­los ‘Re­mem­ber the Name’ Brath­waite at the crease with Gu­dakesh Motie to bowl the fi­nal over, they some­how man­aged to lose by three runs. You just knew at that point that they were fin­ished. Their bowl­ing at­tack, led by Ja­son Hold­er, Obed Mc Coy, Kyle May­ers and Qais Ah­mad, was good, but they nev­er had the bat­ting to sup­port their bowlers.

I fan­cied SLK to win the tour­na­ment main­ly be­cause of one man - Faf du Plessis. He is such an in­spi­ra­tional crick­eter with loads of ex­pe­ri­ence. Watch­ing how they took care of busi­ness with him at the helm against TKR was a joy. He planned every move to dis­miss them for 113 when you could be for­giv­en for think­ing that TKR would have eas­i­ly reached the tar­get of 168 runs. When the news broke that du Plessis was leav­ing af­ter that game, I knew the chances of SLK win­ning the tour­na­ment flew out with him.

He left a big hole in the bat­ting, and even though Col­in Munro came in­to the team, he is not the play­er he was a few years ago. Sikan­dar Raza is a gen­tle­man who speaks elo­quent­ly, but tac­ti­cal­ly, he is no du Plessis, and his tac­tics some­times had me be­mused. Giv­ing an over to Sean Williams, who went for 23 runs in the game in which they lost with one ball to spare against SKNP and not bowl­ing Matthew Forde, was ab­surd. Then, open­ing the bowl­ing with Pe­ter Hat­zoglou in­stead of Forde and Alzarri Joseph when you on­ly had 125 runs to de­fend didn’t make sense, as this was a lose-and-go-home sit­u­a­tion. The SLK had an out­stand­ing all-round team. What a shame Faf du Plessis had to leave.

I thought with Pow­ell leav­ing the Tallawahs, they would have strug­gled, es­pe­cial­ly with a rook­ie cap­tain in Bran­don King. They have done re­mark­ably well, es­pe­cial­ly when down and out, los­ing five games on the trot. King leads from the front, and Alex Hales has come in­to the team to add some grit to the bat­ting. Shar­marh Brooks has to come good in the play­off, as too much is left to Imad Wasim in the mid­dle or­der. Their bowl­ing at­tack is var­ied and can cre­ate prob­lems for the GAW. The fit­ness of Mo­ham­mad Amir is crit­i­cal. If he plays and gets an ear­ly wick­et of Saim Ayub and even Shai Hope, they could be in trou­ble. In ad­di­tion to Amir, Wasim, Fabi­an Allen, Chris Green and Shamar Springer all rep­re­sent a use­ful at­tack. They need to get a good to­tal to de­fend.

The GAW would be hurt­ing from the de­feat by TKR. They did not bat well and need­ed an­oth­er 20 runs, but both Hope and Shim­ron Het­my­er failed, and in the end, they did well to get to 166 runs. They have to get a good start against the JT. I am not con­vinced with Odean Smith at the top of the or­der, and if they want to ex­per­i­ment, send the tal­ent­ed Kevlon An­der­son up front as com­ing in at num­ber eight does not make sense. It will be far more worth­while to leave that spot for a big hit­ter to fin­ish the in­nings. The ever­green Im­ran Tahir and Gu­dakesh Motie will cre­ate prob­lems if they get on top of the bat­ting. They may al­so have to get Smith up to scratch with the ball. This is go­ing to be a tremen­dous match which can go ei­ther way.

What can you say about the TKR? They looked fo­cused, and Phil Sim­mons is an ex­cel­lent plan­ner and tac­ti­cian. They played the per­fect game against the GAW. They would be dis­ap­point­ed that they gave away about 15 runs in the field. Sunil Nar­ine and maybe Mar­tin Gup­till will be back for the fi­nal so they will be stronger and more ex­pe­ri­enced for the fi­nal. Waqar Salamkheil is the find of the tour­na­ment. How do they find these play­ers and the oth­er fran­chis­es don’t? They ev­i­dent­ly do their home­work and plan prop­er­ly; the oth­ers need to take a page out of the TKR’s book. They are strong in all de­part­ments, and Nicholas Pooran, as I have said be­fore, is the most gift­ed T20 bats­man in world crick­et.

Can TKR be beat­en? Of course, they can. As the adage goes - crick­et is a game of glo­ri­ous un­cer­tain­ties, but they will have to play bad­ly, or who­ev­er they meet in the fi­nal will have to play their best game of the tour­na­ment to up­set TKR. What­ev­er the re­sults, I ex­pect two fan­tas­tic games to fin­ish off the 2023 CPL sea­son.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion of which he is a stake­hold­er.