Pollard, Bravo shine in Trinbago Knight Riders' win over Barbados Tridents in CPL 2020

Darren Bravo and Kieron Pollard performed superbly to help the Trinbago Knight Riders register a comfortable 19-run win over Barbados Tridents in their Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2020 clash on Monday (August 24).

Tridents won the toss and decided to field first and they started well as the first boundary for Riders came only in the fourth over. Riders' explosive opener Sunil Narine didn’t get off the mark until the fifth. The Knight Riders, however, started to score freely from the fourth over and managed to score 45/1 at the end of Powerplay.

 At the drinks break, the Knight Riders scored subdued 63/2 with Munro reaching his half-century in just 29 balls. Munro was dismissed by Nurse.

Rashid failed to maintain his line and length in front of Bravo, going for 12 including a set of five wides. Hayden Walsh Jr started with two full tosses, and both Pollard and Bravo made full use of wayward bowling by Tridents to score freely in the final overs of the game.

"Mitchell Santner couldn’t contain Bravo, who clubbed 10 off the first two balls of the over, or Pollard, who hit an extraordinary one-handed Hero Maximum over the sightscreen. Pollard repeated the trick to end a Reifer over that started with Bravo hammering a full toss for six, and, suddenly the Knight Riders were 155/3 off 18," said CPL in a press release.

"Holder proved expensive in the 19th, with 3 wides punctuating Pollard hammering a Hero Maximum and Bravo essaying a classy lofted drive. In the 20th, Bravo found and then cleared the midwicket fence to take himself to 50, and the Knight Riders to an imposing total. The last four overs went at a bruising 17.25 an over, and the Tridents were left wondering if they’d got their bowling strategies right," it added.

In response, the Tridents started positively with Johnson Charles scoring 20 runs of Jayden Seales' first over. Pollard gave the ball to DJ Bravo in the Powerplay to stop the flow of run.

"It was a dramatic over - elder brother Darren dropped Charles off the first ball, ensuring the wait for a 500th T20 wicket for DJ went on, and the Tridents opener rubbed it in with two boundaries. Hope was very much the support act, ending the Powerplay at 9 off 11 to Charles’ 46 off 25. Remarkably, those 46 came entirely between long leg and midwicket," said CPL in a press release.

"But Narine, Ali Khan and Fawad Ahmed slowed scoring significantly, and the pressure told as Charles lost his off-stump to Fawad just after reaching his 50. Corey Anderson’s horror start to Hero CPL 2020 continued as he was run out by Seales for 2, and after a promising start the Tridents were falling away. The elder Bravo pulled off a good low catch to dismiss Mayers off Khary Pierre. Hope picked up a four off Pierre and a massive Hero Maximum off Fawad, but the legspinner responded well to limit the damage and send the rate above 12," it added.

Brief scores: Trinbago Knight Riders 185/3 (DM Bravo 54*, Munro 50, Pollard 41*; Nurse 1/20, Holder 1/37, Reifer 1/47) beat Barbados Tridents 166/6 (Charles 52, Hope 36, Holder 34*; Fawad 1/14, Narine 1/17, Pierre 1/19, Ali Khan 1/32) by 19 runs.