CPL 2024 final just wrapped up, with the final between Guyana Amazon Warriors (GAW) and St. Lucia Kings (SLK). Batting first, GAW scored 138 courtesy some late hitting by Romario Shepherd and Dwayne Pretorius. It first looked like not a lot. However, St. Lucia just didn’t seem to be able to get bat on ball, and made the total look extremely challenging.
Till the end of the 15th over of the second innings, it seemed certain that GAW will win. Aaron Jones, especially, didn’t seem to either get a boundary or get off strike. At one point he was like 7 out of 19 balls. Commentators were talking about St. Lucia coach, Darren Sammy’s option to retire Jones and get in one of the lower order batsmen. But Sammy had been sending messages through a water man, who looked like was telling Jones to get on with it. Then came the 16th over of Moeen Ali. Jones and Chase took him for 27 runs, and completely changed the direction of the game. Jones suddenly seemed invincible. He was hitting it out of the ground at will, moving about at the crease, toying with the bowling.
To be fair, the bowling was average at best. For example, on one of the balls in Pretorius’s over, Jones shuffled all the way to the off side, exposing all his stumps behind him, and pretorius bowled at the off-side wide line, predictably, getting smacked for six. Why not bowl at the three stumps visible behind the batsman’s legs?
I also didn’t get Imran Tahir’s captaincy. The two batsmen were clearly struggling against his leg spin, and yet he chose to bowl Pretorius ahead of himself, only coming on in the 19th with 1 run left off 12 balls.
St. Lucia’s strategy seemed to be to see-off spinners and attack the pacers when they come on later. It worked. Had either Jones or Chase got out with 66 required of 36 balls, I don’t know if they would have been able to make it.
But that’s just the thing about sport - stats and probabilities exist in books, not in reality - in reality, St. Lucia won, and that is final now.
Reflecting on CPL v IPL
Watching Caribbean Premier League was more enjoyable than watching Indian Premier League. Is that blasphemous?
First, the matches were in my timezone, so I could watch them over dinner and onwards, instead of having to check the scores and watching little bits during work hours.
Second, the league seemed quite competitive. In IPL, there are strong teams (CSK, MI, and KKR - depending on their mood), and there are weak teams (I’m looking at you, Punjab and Delhi), and the rest are in between. Meanwhile, in CPL, most teams felt evenly matched. Also, CPL teams felt less reliant on a few key individuals to perform. Instead, it felt like a real team sport, where if one person failed, somebody else excelled.
Sidenote: I’m not a huge fan of the ambience in Antigua (I think that was it, I may be wrong though). One, I don’t love the sound of the steel drums playing continuously during the match, and more importantly, people seem to continue playing them (and dancing) regardless of what’s going on in the game. Maybe it’s the purist in me with the deep deep love of Cricket, but if you’re at a game, care about the game? The ambience in Guyana, on the other hand, seemed fantastic! I may visit Guyana just for that.
Final Thoughts
With the exquisite talent on show, the great crowds, and the excellent fit with my timezone, I will certainly be watching CPL next year.
Some of my favorite players from this season were Rahmanulla Gurbaz, Romario Shepherd, Moeen Ali, Nicholas Pooran (I think he’s the best T20 batsman in the world right now), and Maheesh Theekshana.
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