CPL 2025: Pooran powers all-round Knight Riders into Qualifier Two

It was set up nicely for Trinbago Knight Riders after their bowling innings, with Saurabh Netravalkar and Usman Tariq, in the main, restricting Antigua and Barbuda Falcons to 166.

Then it was over to Nicholas Pooran, with Alex Hales his able collaborator, to knock off the runs with 15 balls and nine wickets in hand – Falcons were out of CPL 2025, and Knight Riders are now in Qualifier 2, where they will take on either Guyana Amazon Warriors or St Lucia Kings, and take them on full of confidence.

The last two games of the CPL group stage were also played in Providence, and a total in the range of 185-190 might have been competitive based on that small evidence.

On the night, though, Pooran made it seem like even 215-220 wouldn’t have been enough.

Knight Riders had gotten off to a good start courtesy Colin Munro and Hales, who put on 25 in three overs before Munro fell. But that was it as far as Falcons’ bowling was concerned.

Pooran signalled his intentions off only the third legal ball he had faced, sending wicket-taker Rahkeem Cornwall over deep midwicket for six to get off the mark. Then came Hales’ first six, in the last over of the powerplay, off Cornwall again, and Hales followed that up with two more sixes in the same over to end the powerplay with 59 runs on the board.

The game was pretty much over then and there, and for a while, Hales and Pooran went neck and neck, Hales on 42 from 30 and Pooran on 45 from 36 at the end of the 13th, with just 58 left to get.

The sight of Cornwall in front of him in what was his last over switched something on in Pooran, and he took two sixes off the that over, two sixes and a four off the next, bowled by Shakib Al Hasan, and then it was all over in a flash, Pooran finishing the game in the 18th with another six, his eighth of the night, off Jayden Seales.

Pooran finished with 90 from 53 balls, and Hales 54 in 40.

Earlier, Amir Jangoo and Andries Gous put on a century stand for the Kings’ second wicket after Netravalkar had got his first wicket, of Cornwall, in the third over. Solid as they were, Jangoo and Gous were never going fast enough to really worry Knight Riders, their 108 runs taking 85 balls.

As a result, when Jangoo (55 in 49 balls) and Gous (61 in 45) both fell in the 17th over, to the ever-impressive Tariq, all Falcons had on the board was 130. They had Shakib’s 26 not out in just nine balls, with four fours and a six, to thank for taking them to 166, but it looked like they had fallen short.

Netravalkar returned 3 for 23 from his four overs and Tariq 2 for 19 from his four. When two of your five bowlers have figures like that, you usually finish on the winning side, as Knight Riders did, keeping alive their hopes of collecting a record fifth CPL title. (ESPNcricinfo)