The 2020 Hero CPL tour­na­ment sad­ly came to an end last Thurs­day with an en­ter­tain­ing fi­nal be­tween the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) and the St Lu­cia Zouks (SLZ). At one time, the game seemed to be head­ing in favour of the Zouks, but the TKR kept plug­ging away and wear­ing their op­po­si­tion down un­til fi­nal­ly, they suc­cumbed by 8 wick­ets.

Be­fore we dis­cuss the teams and their per­for­mances, let me first com­ment on how well the tour­na­ment was or­gan­ised. Those in au­thor­i­ty must be com­pli­ment­ed for tak­ing the bold step to al­low the tour­na­ment to be played here in T&T. The lo­cal or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee led by the Sports Com­pa­ny which in­clud­ed the Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials, Cus­toms, De­fense Force per­son­nel and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice did a fine job un­der dif­fi­cult and un­prece­dent­ed cir­cum­stances. We now have an ex­cel­lent blue­print to or­gan­ise oth­er world-class events here and those in charge should not be afraid to pro­mote sports tourism in our beloved T&T. We have the venues; we have the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to march for­ward and per­haps most im­por­tant­ly, we are des­per­ate in our present eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances to at­tract di­rect for­eign in­vest­ment. Un­doubt­ed­ly, sport can be the cat­a­lyst for achiev­ing this.

With re­spect to the crick­et it­self, we all ex­pect­ed TKR to at least reach the fi­nal and they did not dis­ap­point. To put it mild­ly, they were ter­rif­ic. They ex­hib­it­ed every­thing one would have want­ed from a team – pro­fes­sion­al­ism, com­mit­ment, team spir­it, ded­i­ca­tion, heart and the vis­i­ble de­sire to win. They planned each and every game which was clear­ly ev­i­dent in their ap­proach. To win 12 games on the bounce does not just hap­pen overnight but takes se­ri­ous skill and de­ter­mi­na­tion. Some peo­ple pre­dict­ed dur­ing the tour­na­ment that they must have at least one bad game and they did - against the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents (BT). But, they pulled through be­cause of a bru­tal in­nings by skip­per Kieron Pol­lard. It was a cu­mu­la­tive ef­fort by the TKR, and al­though the bat­ting, in the end, was dom­i­nat­ed by Lendl Sim­mons and Dar­ren Bra­vo, they still won the fi­nal with­out Col­in Munro and Sunil Nar­ine. Ali Khan missed a few games and Dwayne Bra­vo did not bowl in the fi­nal, but they came away vic­to­ri­ous. It was well-planned and con­ceived.

The run­ners up, SLZ, was the sur­prise pack­age. They did it with­out any su­per­stars. Ros­ton Chase showed how much he has im­proved as a crick­eter and put to bed the the­o­ry that he is not a T20 play­er. He played in­tel­li­gent crick­et with both bat and ball and he per­formed re­mark­ably well for the SLZ. Scott Kuggelei­jn was one of the few over­seas play­ers that per­formed, but when you go through the rest of the squad, some­one stood up to be count­ed when it mat­tered most. They were well-coached by Andy Flower and planned their games well like TKR. In the end, you had to tip your hat to Daren Sam­my and his team.

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors (GAW), yet again, flat­tered to de­ceive. How could a team with ex­cel­lent bat­ting tal­ent get bowled out for 55. Bran­don King, at the top of the or­der, was a fail­ure and he needs to go back to the draw­ing board and tight­en his game. With the tal­ent Shim­ron Het­my­er pos­sess­es, he should be scor­ing many more runs con­sis­tent­ly. Nicholas Pooran showed his class with a cen­tu­ry at the Oval, but he too should be scor­ing heav­ier. The team missed the ex­pe­ri­ence of Shoaib Ma­lik in the mid­dle or­der. Their bowl­ing was steady, but Im­ran Tahir is not get­ting any younger and seemed to tire com­ing to the end of the tour­na­ment.

Ja­maica Tallawahs (JT), while they reached the se­mi-fi­nals, was a huge dis­ap­point­ment; too much de­pend­ed on Glenn Phillips and An­dre Rus­sell. Nkrumah Bon­ner looked sol­id but got

out at in­op­por­tune times. When will Jer­maine Black­wood set­tle? He has tal­ent but thinks he can hit every ball out of the ground. The cap­tain­cy seemed to af­fect Rov­man Pow­ell as he nev­er showed up with the bat. Chad­wick Wal­ton was on hol­i­day and Asif Ali did not un­der­stand that good balls must be re­spect­ed; he was lack­adaisi­cal in his ap­proach. Spin­ners Mu­jeeb Ur Rah­man and Sandeep Lamich­hane were ex­cel­lent, but once they came off the ball, no one could stem the flow of runs against the JT.

The de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, BT, were sim­ply aw­ful. They missed their as­tute coach Phil Sim­mons and while they start­ed well, the game against the TKR seemed to de­stroy their spir­it. They must have been left baf­fled won­der­ing what they did wrong to lose that game. They failed to make 93 to de­feat the SLZ and by then, they were all look­ing for the next CAL flight. Out­side of Ja­son Hold­er, Kyle May­ers and Mitchell Sant­ner cov­ered them­selves in glo­ry, not even Rashid Khan im­pressed. John­son Charles, at the top of the or­der, flat­tered to de­ceive while they could not find an ad­e­quate re­place­ment for Har­ry Gur­ney to stop the flow of runs.

St Kitts and Nevis Pa­tri­ots were on hol­i­day. They seemed to lack prop­er plan­ning, lead­er­ship and good man­age­ment. Ben Dunk will on­ly re­al­ly be re­mem­bered for run­ning across the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in pour­ing rain through a wa­ter­logged sur­face. You look at their tal­ent­ed squad and it is ob­vi­ous they were a dis­joint­ed bunch. The over­seas play­ers were abysmal and seemed to nev­er help the lo­cal play­ers. The fran­chise must look else­where if they are to come back in 2021. How can a team with the bowl­ing tal­ent of So­hail Tan­vir, Shel­don Cot­trell, Rayad Em­rit and Alzarri Joseph per­form so bad­ly that they won on­ly 1 game from 10 on of­fer? Out­side of one good knock from Evin Lewis and two from Joshua Da Sil­va, their bats­men de­fault­ed.

Col­in Mur­ray’s all-star team of the tour­na­ment is as fol­lows:

Glenn Phillips (JT - wick­et-keep­er), Lendl Sim­mons (TKR), Shim­ron Het­my­er (GAW), Dar­ren Bra­vo (TKR), Nicholas Pooran (GAW), Kieron Pol­lard (TKR - cap­tain), Ja­son Hold­er (BT), Akeal Ho­sein (TKR), Scott Kuggelei­jn (SLZ), Mu­jeeb Ur Ra­haman (JT), Im­ran Tahir (GAW)

An­dre Rus­sell (for Ja­son Hold­er) and Sunil Nar­ine (for Akeal Ho­sein) would have been in my XI had they been fit through­out the tour­na­ment. How do you rate my all-star team?

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in this col­umn are sole­ly those of the writer and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion of which he is a stake­hold­er