Barbados Royals' Home Matches at Kensington Oval Spotlight Impressive Crowd Support and Outstanding Performances

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By Tony McWatt

As part of its product line, the famous Canadian coffee company Tim Hortons also sells donuts, including a very popular variety known as ‘Timbits’; mini round donuts that are usually sold by the dozen.

The Caribbean Premier League’s August 31 – September 3 return to Barbados’ Kensington Oval, regarded universally as the Mecca of West Indies cricket, can now therefore, be said to have provided an assortment of ‘Bimbits’.

The Barbados Royals played its four home matches against the Trinbago Knight Riders, Jamaica Tallawahs, St Lucia Kings, and St Kitts & Nevis Patriots during its homestead. While the Royals won two and lost two of those matches, all four matches provided highlights for those present in the stands and those who watched at home on television.

One of the most impressive factors was the outstanding crowd support the Royals received from the thousands who poured into Kensington to witness the matches. The Greenidge and Haynes Stand was almost completely jam-packed for all four match days with supporters who noisily cheered every four and six that was struck by the Royals’ batters and each wicket taken by its bowlers.

The support provided by patrons at Kensington Oval should serve as a model that can hopefully, be duplicated throughout the Caribbean next year when the West Indies team plays its 2024 T20 World Cup matches.

With regards to those matches, there were also outstanding performances by some individual players who, all things remaining equal, will be expected to be members of the West Indies 2024 T20 World Cup squad. Jason Holder was outstanding in three of the Royals’ four matches, virtually carrying the team on his slender shoulders with his economic, wicket-taking bowling.

Holder captured six wickets for 152 runs from his 16 overs bowled in total during the Royals’ four home matches and was by far the Royals’ best bowler.

After losing its opening match against the Knight Riders, where they were dismissed for a paltry 61, the Royals rebounded the very next evening with a resounding victory over the defending champions, Jamaica Tallawahs. The backbone of that victory was a superlative innings from the 24-year-old Dominica-born Alick Athanaze playing in his debut CPL season.

Athanaze’s 48-ball 76, which included seven fours and three sixes, was an absolute delight to witness, filled with almost every shot that is now part of T20 cricket’s inventory. Athanaze’s performance would have gone a long way in bolstering his chances of being in the West Indies 15-man squad for next year’s T20 World Cup.

One player whose name would have been written into the likely squad, even before bowling a ball in this year’s CPL is Alzarri Joseph. In a performance that set tongues wagging and which had even the thousands of Royals supporters nodding their heads grudgingly in admiration, Joseph bowled with extreme pace and hostility to send three of the home team’s batters back to the pavilion for next to nothing.

Joseph returned figures of 3-7 in 2.3 overs to help the St Lucia Kings dismiss the Royals for 105 in 17.5 overs. The Royals’ score was almost a 100 runs short of the 195 they’d been set for victory by the Kings.

The Royals batting woes were eventually corrected in its fourth and final home match against the hapless Patriots. And who better to do so than the enigmatic giant Rakheem Cornwall?

As the Royals opener, Cornwall’s first three 2023 CPL home matches had produced scores of 0, 17, and 18. He, however, more than made up for all three of those shortcomings with a belligerent century against the beleaguered Patriots.

Cornwall’s whirlwind 102 was made off just 48 balls. It included four boundaries and 12 massive sixes and helped the Royals to comfortably surpass the seemingly formidable 221 target.

Cornwall was assisted by his captain Rovman Powell, who promoted himself to number four in the Royals’ batting order in a bold attempt to give their run chase some much-needed momentum. Powell’s 26-ball 49, containing five fours and three sixes, certainly provided the required momentum and it was perhaps most appropriate that it was him and Athanaze who were both at the crease when victory was achieved.

The batting order promotion was a redeeming moment for Powell, whose captaincy during the Royals previous matches against the Knight Riders, Tallawahs and Kings had been somewhat lacking in astuteness. Powell’s on-field management of his bowlers at times left the local scribes in the media centre shaking their heads in disbelief, if not pulling their hair out in utter frustration.

While Powell’s captaincy may have been frustrating, that of Hayley Matthews, the Barbados Royal’s Women’s captain, was far more pleasing. Watching Matthews in the field was joyously akin to witnessing a very skilled lady general marshalling her troops with supreme confidence and competency. Everything about Matthews as a cricketer is indeed often extremely pleasing to behold.

However, in every dozen-box of ‘Timbits’ there are always some varieties that aren’t as pleasing as the others, and as such are the very last to be consumed and sometimes not at all.

Topping the list of those that would not have been on anyone’s favourite list was the continuing misery of Royals opening batsman Kyle Mayers.

In his five matches played to date, Mayers has recorded scores of 16, 31, 0, 4, 0 and 22! As one of the current West Indies all-format players in the Royals lineup much was expected of Mayers. His continuing run of paltry scores must, therefore, now be particularly concerning to both himself as well as his supporters.

Like Mayers, Obed McCoy is also a West Indies T20 player. In this his first full season back after an extended absence due to injury, McCoy was expected to spearhead the Royals bowling attack with his left-arm seam, which when he’s at his very best can also be quite quick. Unfortunately, McCoy has been far from at his best during this year’s CPL matches, proving to be both inefficient and expensive to such a degree that he was eventually dropped from the starting XI for the Royals’ final home match against the Patriots.

Unfortunately for the Royals, their choice as McCoy’s replacement proved to be even more expensive. Carlos Brathwaite’s four overs went for 66 runs, the third most expensive spell ever in CPL’s 11-year history. It’s a spell that will now also be forever remembered, for all the wrong reasons.

Finally, to complete the number of unpleasing ‘Bimbits’, there were the sights of totally ununiformed Kensington Oval groundsmen manning the covers for the rain interruption that occurred during the Royals – Kings match. There was also the unsavoury sight of the said groundsmen manually pushing single super soppers in a day and age when much larger, far more efficient, motorised versions are commonplace in most other major cricket venues around the world.

A dozen-pack of assorted Bimbites for consumption. The majority, very tasty. A few somewhat less so!

Guyana-born, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets/monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted toward Caribbean and Canadian readers. He is also the only son of the former Guyana and West Indies wicket-keeper batsman the late Clifford “Baby Boy” McWatt.