The Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) the pre-tour­na­ment favourites at the 2019 Hero CPL has been with­out a win in their last two match­es will get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to turn things around and add to their pre­vi­ous four vic­to­ries to date.

The TKR will come up against the Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents at the Kens­ing­ton Oval, Bar­ba­dos on Thurs­day from 6 pm. The home team is un­der pres­sure af­ter los­ing to low­ly Ja­maica Tallawahs in their last game on Sun­day night at home.

TKR has nine points from six match­es and a vic­to­ry on Thurs­day will earn the team a place in the play-offs. They have won four match­es, lost one and the last en­counter against the St. Lu­cia Zouks end­ed in a no-re­sult af­ter the rain came with the Zouks 99/4 af­ter 12.2 overs.

The Tri­dents, on the oth­er hand, have won two of their six match­es, los­ing four and they are in 5th po­si­tion with on­ly Tallawahs be­low them.

The TKR has been boost­ed by the ad­di­tion of the Bar­ba­dos-born Eng­land fast bowler Chris Jor­dan. He has joined the TKR as a re­place­ment for Pak­istani Muham­mad Has­nain who was sent back to Pak­istan a week ago.

Jor­dan who played for Eng­land against the West In­dies ear­li­er this year dur­ing the Colo­nial Med­ical In­sur­ance Cup in the West In­dies brings a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence to the fast bowl­ing set up at the TKR.

The 30-year old last played for Eng­land against Pak­istan in May this year but was over­looked for the World Cup and was not used against Aus­tralia in the Ash­es se­ries re­cent­ly.

TKR cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard is go­ing back to the coun­try where he start­ed his CPL ca­reer as a cap­tain. He feels no way about it: "This is the beau­ty of fran­chise crick­et. You get a chance to play in dif­fer­ent teams all around the re­gion and you de­vel­op as a play­er. Yes, I first played here in the CPL but I am hap­py where I am now and look­ing for­ward to lead­ing the team to vic­to­ry against the Tri­dents.

"It is good to be back play­ing here, there is al­ways a keen bat­tle be­tween these two fran­chis­es and we ex­pect more the same when the teams square off."

Af­ter their nar­row five-run loss to the Tallawahs, Tri­dents cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er is not a hap­py man. "We didn't bat well. You want to show in­tent when you go out there with the bat but we couldn't do that. We need to look our­selves in the mir­ror at the mo­ment be­cause we need to turn things around and do it rapid­ly. TKR is a tough unit, it won't be easy but we have had some good re­sults against them here in the past."

The track at Kens­ing­ton is ex­pect­ed to be on the slow side and bat­ting would not be easy af­ter the hard­ness of the ball goes away. The Tri­dents have been boost­ed by the in­clu­sion of Bangladeshi Shak­ib Al Hasan, who had a bril­liant ICC World Cup in Eng­land re­cent­ly.

In head to head clash­es, the TKR which is the most suc­cess­ful team in the his­to­ry of the CPL has won sev­en of the 11 en­coun­ters, with the Tri­dents win­ning four.