Who will win St Lucia Stars vs Trinbago Knight Riders (CPL)?
Defending champions Trinbago Knight Riders start their 2018 Caribbean Premier League campaign against the team who finished bottom in last year's points table, St Lucia Stars. The match is scheduled for August 8 and the live action begins at 20:00 local time.
Tkr vs Sts: Where to watch/Live streaming
TV channels: Sky Sports, Sony Six, SuperSport, CNC 3, ESPN, SportsMac TV, Fox Sports, Willow TV, OSN Sports Cricket
Live streaming: NOW TV, SkyGo, SonyLiv, Facebook
Toss Prediction
Both teams will no doubt look to bowl first given how successful the chasing side have been at Port of Spain in recent times.
Read on for team previews, betting tips, latest odds and match prediction for Trinbago Knight Riders vs St Lucia Stars (CPL).
Trinbago Knight Riders Team News & Playing 11
TKR Team News
Trinbago Knight Riders have made three changes from their title winning team for 2018. Junior Dala and Ronsford Beaton will not be in the bowling attack, while Fawad Ahmed will replace Shadab Khan. Dala has been replaced by West Indian Shannon Gabriel and American international Ali Khan comes in for Beaton – who is working on his bowling action after being reported while on international duty.
TKR Key Players
Trinbago’s New Zealand duo Brendan McCullum and Colin Munro were their stars with the bat last season, scoring three half-centuries in each and weighing in with 335 and 366 runs respectively.
McCullum also boasted a strike rate of 165 and a high score of 91 after some astonishing batting.
With the ball, wickets were shared around but Dwayne Bravo led the way with 16. Sunil Narine’s 12 came with an economy rate of just 5.39 an over, however.
In Shadab Khan’s absence, Fawad Ahmed will look to step up as Narine’s foil. Ahmed took 14 wickets in the recent Global T20 Canada.
TKR Team Form
Trinbago Knight Riders won last year’s Caribbean Premier League, having finished top of the group with eight wins from their ten matches – one of their only defeats was in their final group game too.
In the qualifiers, they lost to St Kitts & Nevis Patriots in their first game – bowled out for just 111 in pursuit of 149/7 – but they bounced back to beat Guyana Amazon Warriors by six wickets to book their place in the final. Guyana posted 159/6 but Trinbago got their with two overs to spare.
In the final, against St Kitts & Nevis again, they restricted the Patriots to 135/6 and reached their target with three wickets and one over remaining – Kevon Cooper, having already taken 2-12 from two overs with the ball, leading the home with an unbeaten 29 from 14 balls.
Trinbago Knight Riders Predicted Playing 11
Chris Lynn, Colin Munro, Sunil Narine, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Hamza Tariq, Darren Bravo, Denesh Ramdin, Kevon Cooper, Shannon Gabriel, Fawad Ahmed
St Lucia Stars Team News & Playing 11
STS Team News
With D'Arcy Short absent, St Lucia Stars have picked up disgraced former Australia vice-captain David Warner - who remains suspended by his national team for his role in the ball-tampering scandal. Also drafted in, as the Stars look for vast improvements on last season, are New Zealand batsman Mark Chapman and bowler Mohammad Sami. Kieron Pollard has also switched to the Stars, ending his long stint with the Barbados Tridents.
STS Key Players
David Warner took a while to get going on his competitive return in the Global T20 Canada, but he links up with the St Lucia Stars having scored 42 and 55 in back-to-back games for the Winnipeg Hawks to show signs he was back to his best.
Andre Fletcher was their star man with the bat in last year's competition, scoring 286 runs in ten innings despite the team's poor form. New signing Kieron Pollard was just behind Fletcher in the batting stats - he scored 264 runs but hit three 50s to Fletcher's one. Both men were involved in the Global T20 Canada, while Fletcher was also on international duty against Bangladesh.
Lendl Simmons, their number one draft pick, is expected to lead the batting this year, however. He was the leading run scorer in the Global T20 Canada last time out, scoring 321 runs in eight innings for the Winnipeg Hawks.
Also linking up with the Stars on the back of West Indies' T20i series against Bangladesh is Kesrick Williams, who picked up 4-28 in the first match with the ball. The team is led by Darren Sammy, meanwhile, veteran former T20 World Cup-winning captain.
STS Team Form
St Lucia Stars picked up just one point in last season's Caribbean Premier League, and that was thanks to a no result against St Kitts & Nevis. The Stars were outplayed throughout, suffering heavy defeats to Trinbago Knight Riders in their first two matches - posting just 132/9 and 118/9 - and never recovered. Barbados and St Kitts & Nevis both posted 196 against the Stars, in consecutive matches, and it was a thrashing against the Tridents - falling 29 runs short in their pursuit of 195/4 - that closed out a miserable campaign.
St Lucia Stars Predicted Playing 11
Lendl Simmons, David Warner, Andre Fletcher, Rahkeem Cornwall, Mark Chapman, Darren Sammy, Kieron Pollard, Kavem Hodge, Mitchell McClenaghan, Mohammad Sami, Obed McCoy.
Aug 09, 2018
05:30 IST / 0:00 GMT
Queens Park Oval - Port of Spain, Trinidad And Tobago
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