Barbados Royals advance to Qualifier 2 of the Caribbean Premier League 2024, after handing Trinbago Knight Riders a nine-wicket defeat in a match curtailed by floodlight failure at the Guyana National Stadium in Guyana on Tuesday.
The Royals’ innings was reduced to five overs due to faulty floodlights, which almost abandoned the eliminator. David Miller was outstanding with the bat as he single-handedly guided the Royals to victory by covering the 60-run target within five overs through his half-century.
It was a brilliant turn-around and will add hugely to the Royals’ confidence. They finally broke their four-match losing streak at a stage where it mattered the most. They also had lost to the Knight Riders in both occasions this CPL 2024 but finally managed to redeem themselves.
The Knight Riders won the toss and elected to bat first. There were two changes in the Royals dugout with Rahkeem Cornwall and Obed McCoy coming in for Kevin Wickham and Keshav Maharaj.
Good Start by Theekshana
Maheesh Theekshana continued his tradition of taking early wickets by taking out opener Sunil Narine in the first over.
After that, the in-form Nicholas Pooran joined Jason Roy in the middle to forge a 52-run partnership. By the end of the powerplay, the Knight Riders had 54 runs on the board.
Pooran put up a show
After Naveen-ul-Haq dismissed Roy, Pooran was joined by Trinbago skipper Kieron Pollard in the middle. Like Roy, even Pollard played an anchor role to a hard-hitting Pooran who carried on his sublime form from their last match.
Once Ramon Simmonds bowled Powell out, Andre Russell entered the mix. Nicholas Pooran was cruising to another century when a floodlight failure halted play in the final over of the Knight Riders' innings. Pooran was at 91 off 60 balls at this point.
Light failure almost cancels the match
What was expected to be a short delay turned out to be decisive. The floodlights were out for over 90 minutes with the match on the verge of getting abandoned. The overs had also started to reduce with the DLS method kicking in.
One of the light towers came back but work on the other continued. As the cut-off time neared, the Royals were getting frustrated because a no restart meant the Knight Riders would go through to Qualifier 2 due to their higher position in the CPL 2024 points table.
Revised target set for the Royals
Just at the brink of the cut-off time, the lights came back on and the Royals' target was revised to 60 runs off five overs, with two powerplay overs.
With big hitting needed from the get-go in the high-pressure situation, captain Rovman Powell joined Quinton de Kock at the top of the order. However, de Kock was bowled out in the very first over by Narine.
David Miller steals the limelight
Next up, the Royals management sent in Miller who was in great touch over the past couple of games, and that decision proved to be a crucial one. While Powell held anchor at the other end, the South African wreaked havoc on the Trinbago bowlers.
He scored a massive 17 runs in the fourth over off Chris Jordan and the Royals needed just eight runs in the last six balls. Miller hit two back-to-back maximums to finish off the game in 4.2 overs. He ended with 50 runs off just 17 balls, which included five maximums and three boundaries.
The Royals will meet the winner of Qualifier 1, which will be played between Saint Lucia Kings and Guyana Amazon Warriors, on Friday at the Guyana National Stadium. Winning the Qualifier 2 will take the Royals to the CPL 2024 final.