De­spite los­ing their se­mi-fi­nal match to the St Lu­cia Kings by 21 runs on Tues­day, the four-time tour­na­ment cham­pi­on team the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) got four picks on the 2021 Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) team of the tour­na­ment. The quar­tet are cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard, off-spin­ners Sunil Nar­ine and Akeal Ho­sein and pac­er Ravi Ram­paul, who fin­ished with the most wick­ets - 19.

The team was se­lect­ed by the Hero CPL com­men­tary team – Ian Bish­op, Dan­ny Mor­ri­son, Daren Gan­ga, Si­mon Doull and Samuel Badree.

The team fea­tures nine Caribbean play­ers and two over­seas stars and se­lec­tion re­wards con­sis­tent per­for­mances across the 2021 tour­na­ment. The team heav­i­ly fea­tures young play­ers from across the Caribbean who have been ex­treme­ly im­pres­sive in this year’s Hero CPL.

The team in­cludes Ram­paul who is the lead­ing wick­et tak­er for this sea­son, and the World Cup bound Evin Lewis who has been ex­cel­lent through­out. The two over­seas play­ers who make the team are Faf du Plessis and Tim David, both from the Saint Lu­cia Kings. The per­for­mances of Ram­paul and Ros­ton Chase in the tour­na­ment has seen them gain se­lec­tion for the West In­dies squad for the ICC T20 World Cup.

Ian Bish­op, for­mer West In­dies in­ter­na­tion­al and Hero CPL com­men­ta­tor said: “The com­men­tary pan­el, in se­lect­ing the team of the tour­na­ment would like to com­mend the teams and play­ers for mak­ing the job a very chal­leng­ing one. A few play­ers stood head and shoul­ders above the crowd due to their high lev­el of ex­cel­lence, and their per­for­mance sim­ply made their case im­pos­si­ble to ig­nore. With the re­main­ing se­lec­tions there was vig­or­ous de­bate and some­times split­ting hairs due to the high lev­els of per­for­mance and com­pe­ti­tion for sim­i­lar roles from ex­pe­ri­enced, mid-lev­el and young play­ers.

“The abun­dance of tal­ent, en­thu­si­asm and pas­sion shown by so many play­ers in 2021 was laud­able and once again made the tour­na­ment ex­treme­ly com­pet­i­tive and com­pelling view­ing. We ac­cept and wel­come the view that fans will have vary­ing opin­ions and de­bates on their fa­vorite com­mend all the play­ers for their dis­tin­guished ef­forts through­out the tour­na­ment.”

Hero CPL 2021 Team of the Tour­na­ment

1. Evin Lewis (St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots)

2. Faf du Plessis (Saint Lu­cia Kings)

3. Nicholas Pooran (Guyana Ama­zon War­riors)

4. Ros­ton Chase (Saint Lu­cia Kings)

5. Kieron Pol­lard (Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers)

6. Tim David (Saint Lu­cia Kings)

7. Sunil Nar­ine (Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers)

8. Ro­mario Shep­herd (Guyana Ama­zon War­riors)

9. Odean Smith (Guyana Ama­zon War­riors)

10. Akeal Ho­sein (Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers)

11. Ravi Ram­paul (Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers)