Jah Bless The Caribbean: Kiwi-CPL Update #3
Strange times for the kiwi crew playing in the Caribbean Premier League as Glenn Phillips is literally the only bloke who has registering something notable since the last check in. Scott Kuggeleijn is still chillin' in second for wickets with 11w @ 15.63avg/8.12rpo for St Lucia, although Kuggeleijn has taken 1 wicket in his last three games and that hasn't had any impact on St Lucia as they have two other bowlers with 10+ wickets.
With three bowlers total, taking 10+ wickets, St Lucia are 2nd on the ladder with a 5-2 record despite having just one batsman in the top-10 for runs. I pondered previously how Kuggeleijn may finish up the CPL as batsman become acquainted with his style of bowling and his recent string of games suggests a plateau - now we wait and see how influential Kuggeleijn can be.
At the bottom of the ladder are St Kitts & Nevis, who are 1-6. Leggy Ish Sodhi missed a couple games for SKN and I'm not sure whether that was due to injury or ineffective overs from Sodhi as he has 2w @ 79.50avg/9.08rpo in five games. That's niggly straight up, then a a bit more funk is thrown into the mix considering that those spinners from Afghanistan and Nepal are taking over the CPL, while South African veteran Imran Tahir is ranked third.
Afghanistan have 19-year-old offie Mujeeb Ur Rahman leading all wicket-takers, then veteran Mohammad Nabi is ranked 4th. 21-year-old leggy Rashid Khan is tucked away in 7th, a spot below Nepal's 20-year-old weapon Sandeep Lamichhane. Spinners are having a great impact on the CPL and yet Sodhi is struggling to keep up, which is unlikely to get any better in the remaining fixtues as SKN are rooted to the bottom of the ladder.
Nick Kelly did grab a knock of 16 @ 80sr in the middle order over the weekend and now has scores of 5, 0 and 16 in his 3inns for SKN. That's a similar vibe to Corey Anderson, who did have a score of 31 last week, but then put up scores of 1, 6 and 11 over the weekend for Barbados and this presents further reason to ponder Anderson's kiwi summer; Anderson has a strike-rate of 86.88 in a T20 tournament.
Anderson's Barbados buddy Mitchell Santner has at least been more solid as he's snared 2w and 1w in his last two outings, packaged with 20* and 8*. With an overall strike-rate of 109.80, Santner has chipped in down the order and has 52 @ 15.60avg/5.20rpo which is again solid without the spectacular. Barbados are 2-5, a spot ahead of SKN and given the lack of funk dished up by the SKN kiwis as well as Anderson, I'm eager to see how Santner slides through the remaining games and that's especially with the ball as Santner can work with his team mate Rashid Khan to tie up batsmen.
Colin Munro hit the same wall as Kuggeleijn, after a couple decent knocks last week for Trinbago. Munro hit 17, then had back to back ducks and has fallen well down the batting rankings, dipping beneath Ross Taylor to be ranked 13th with 133 runs @ 26.60avg/141.48sr. That strike-rate is hefty and now batsman with more runs than Munro has a higher strike-rate.
Trinbago have enjoyed greater contributions from Tim Seifert and while Munro has duckin' it up, Trinbago remained undefeated (6-0) in part via Seifert stepping up his work. Well, Seifert only batted once in the first three games, then he had knocks of 15*, 39* and 4 to be averaging 30 @ 100sr. Nothing too crazy there from Seifert, although with internationals like Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard, Colin Munro and Darren Bravo all scoring 100+ runs thus far, Seifert is enjoying minimal pressure on his batsmanship.
Ross Taylor has strung three 20+ scores together in a row for Guyana and Guyana are steadily perched in 3rd (3-4). There hasn't been any whack whack cricket from Taylor as he's cruising @ 93.24sr and has climbed to 11th in runs via his ability to do something most games; Taylor has five scores of 20+ in 7inns. There is scope here for Taylor to step up a notch, playing more influential innings this week and he'll need to up that strike-rate if Guyana are to take on the power of Trinbago for example.
Then we have our favourite kiwi-Jamaican Phillips. Having started with scores of 44 and 58, Phillips then had scores of 0, 26 and 0 before a lovely 79* in his last game on the weekend. Four batsmen have scored 200+ runs in the CPL and Phillips is at the top of that list, scoring 207 runs @ 41.40avg/127.77sr and Phillips is one of four batsman to hit 50+ twice so far.
Phillips has also cracked 15 sixes and that's enough for Phillips to only be behind West Indian Evin Lewis' 16 sixes. Jamaica are 4th (3-3) and Phillips is the only Jamaican batsman in the top-15 for runs, which is balanced out by Jamaica having both Phillips and Ur Rahman leading the runs/wickets.
One more thing: Phillips is low key building a healthy T20 record. Phillips averages 31.56 with a strike-rate of 134.69 and for context, Virat Kohli averages 41.20/134.56sr and then Kane Williamson averages 30.21/124.77sr. In T20 cricket, my markers are 30avg/120sr and that means that the batsman has scored plenty of runs quick enough to be influential in T20 cricket.
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Peace and love.