Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers earned a valu­able win as they de­feat­ed Bar­ba­dos Roy­als by 42 runs in the 2023 Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL).

Bar­ba­dos Roy­als won the toss and chose to field first, how­ev­er, Nicholas Pooran would score a fan­tas­tic cen­tu­ry as the Knight Rid­ers post­ed a size­able to­tal of 208/6 af­ter 20 overs at the Queen's Park Oval, in Port-of-Spain on Wednes­day night.

The Roy­als were un­able to chase down that to­tal de­spite a valiant 70 from Kyle May­ers, as the spin bowl­ing of Waqar Salamkheil and Akeal Ho­sein played a cru­cial role in re­strict­ing the Roy­als to 166/7 af­ter 20 overs.

Open­er Mark Deyal went ear­ly in the Knight Rid­ers in­nings to a su­perb Roelof van der Mer­we catch on the bound­ary.

Then came Pooran and Mar­tin Gup­till and the pair be­gan to re­build the TKR in­nings with a steady part­ner­ship of 56 be­fore Gup­till lost his wick­et, and two balls lat­er, for the sec­ond evening in a row, cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard was run out.

At 106-4 the Knight Rid­ers were in a pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion, how­ev­er, Pooran and An­dre Rus­sell would cre­ate fire­works in front of a packed home crowd, launch­ing six­es and com­bin­ing for an 82-run part­ner­ship off just 36 balls. Pooran would go on to score a bril­liant cen­tu­ry, his sec­ond at the CPL, as the Knight Rid­ers end­ed on 208/6 af­ter 20 overs be­hind Pooran's un­beat­en 102 off 53 balls. His in­nings com­prised five fours and 10 six­es, while Rus­sell's 39 came off 22 balls with two fours and four six­es.

In re­ply, Bar­ba­dos Roy­als suf­fered a ma­jor set­back ear­ly in their chase as Akeal Ho­sein would grab the wick­et of Rah­keem Corn­wall in the third over. De­spite a dis­ci­plined bowl­ing per­for­mance from the Knight Rid­ers led by Akeal Ho­sein and Waqar Salamkheil, Kyle May­ers would con­tin­ue to score runs and even­tu­al­ly reach his half-cen­tu­ry. May­ers was dis­missed for 70 from an Ali Khan de­liv­ery, and af­ter that the run rate would prove to be too much for the Roy­als, as they fin­ished on 166/7, los­ing the con­test by 42 runs.

The win means Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers now have 9 points as they look to qual­i­fy for the play-off leg of the 2023 Re­pub­lic Bank CPL.

Brief Scores

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers 208/6 (Pooran 102, Rus­sell 39,; Hold­er 2/39, Ah­mad 1/27) beat Bar­ba­dos Roy­als 166/7 (May­ers 70, Evans 20, van der Mer­we 20; Salamkheil 2/18, Ho­sein 2/21) by 42 runs