“Take that!”
That was Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s message to St Lucia’s Prime Minister Alan Chastanet after the Trinbago Knight Riders defeated the St Lucia Zouks by eight wickets to take their fourth Hero Caribbean Premier League title at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba yesterday.
TKR had one of the most dominating performances in the history of the league, winning all 12 games on their way to the CPL 2020 title.
In a scintillating match, the Zouks batted first and scored 154 runs and were hoping it was enough to give them their first title. However, the target of 155 was easily reached with 11 balls to spare as opener Lendl Simmons (84 off 49 balls) and middle-order batsman Bravo (58 off 47 balls) added 138 runs in an unbroken third-wicket stand as TKR became the first team in the history of CPL to win all their matches in the tournament.
The final victory was achieved without two of TKR’s premier players in spinner Sunil Narine, who was dropped from the final eleven, and Colin Munro, who was injured just before the playoffs started.
Captain Kieron Pollard was the pick of the bowlers with four wickets while pacer Ali Khan and leg-spinner Fawad Ahamad took two tickets each.
In a video message on his Facebook page shortly after the TKR victory at 1.35 pm, PM Rowley congratulated the organisers of the tournament, both local and international, and all the players.
According to Rowley, “They held up against the buzz saw.”
He described the TKR, as “amazing champions once again.” He also extended congratulations to “Sharukh Khan wherever you are.”
Khan is the India-based owner of the TKR franchise.
“We won again!” Rowley boasted.
The CPL tournament was played this year under tight restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic but despite that, Rowley said it was “a pretty good tournament.”
He admitted, “it did not have the best in every component but it had a lot of good cricket and it’s a good lifter of our spirits here in Trinidad and Tobago.”
The tournament was played without fans because of COVID-19 restrictions and only players and their support staff were allowed into a “bubble” at the Hilton Trinidad and to witness the games played at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain and BLCA.
This did not deter the celebrations on the TKR win, as players defied all COVID-19 regulations as they hugged, danced and celebrated the victory on the field and during the trophy presentation afterwards.
On the success of the tournament despite the COVID restrictions, Rowley said Trinidad and Tobago “was on show for the last three and a half weeks or thereabouts and I think everything went very well from that standpoint and we are pleased to have hosted our international players and our local players and we did have a very good tournament.”
As he basked in the glory of the TKR win, he had this message for his St Lucian counterpart: “But at the end of the day, Prime Minister of St Lucia wherever you are, the Zouks have been defeated by the Trinidad and Tobago Knight Riders. Take that!”