The 2014 Caribbean Premiere League ended with a rain hit final which ruined all the fun of a month old exciting tournament. It was a tournament which saw many different performances from both the local and international players. This year the tournament had many different players taking part in the tournament. The biggest signing this year was Kevin Pietersen while the old guard Shoaib Malik a part of Barbados Tridents. The tournament had a great combination of young and old talent which together provided a great combination of entertainment.
The tournament started off with 6 teams taking part in the tournament. Jamaica Tallawahs under the captaincy of Chris Gayle started off as the defending champions; Barbados Tridents led by Kieron Pollard was yet another favourite of the tournament. The Trinidad & Tobago Red Steel led by Dwayne Bravo was the most powerful team to take on any challenge while the Guyana Amazon Warriors led by Denesh Ramdin was a team that with the firepower of his bowling could have changed the whole game. St Lucia Zouks under the captaincy of Darren Sammy had some players who could have batted the game out while Antigua Hawksbills was led in by Marlon Samuels. These were the 6 teams who started their journey in 2014 to become the best team of twenty 20 in the Caribbean.
Only 4 teams were to qualify from the group stage to the knockout phase. In the beginning of the tournament the St Lucia Zouks and Antigua Hawksbills failed to put up resistance to any team but later won only few matches in the league stages. Red Steel and the Tallawahs were the team who seemed to be the team to beat in the first stage of the tournament. But in the end of the group stage saw the fall of the top two teams and Barbados Tridents emerged as league winners qualifying directly to the finals while Guyana Amazon Warriors qualified directly to the second semi-final. Red Steel and Jamaica Tallawahs booked a 1st semi-final date qualifying as 3rd and 4th spot from the group.
Playing in the 1st semi-final Tallawahs almost lost it but it was Andre Russell won the match for them. He came in the end and scored all important 69 runs to knock Red Steel out of the tournament. The second Semi-final saw some great bowling from Guyana to restrict the Tallawahs to a score of 134. This score was easily achieved by the openers of Warriors as Martin Guptill and Lendl Simmons took their team to the final with 10 wicket win. The final between warriors and the tridents was a rain hit game and after the D/L method Tridents won the game and the tournament becoming the new champions. The whole tournament was a scenario of some great performance. Here are some of the game changers who changed the tournament for 2014.
The whole tournament gave us some of the performers who changed the game. The star of the tournament was no doubt was Shoaib Malik. He was a player who on his own made sure that his team ever failed under any pressure. He was the man to be there for his team whenever required to control the team from falling apart or for scoring some fast runs. He was the second best batsmen in the tournament as he scored 406 runs. The best batsmen in the tournament were Lendl Simmons of Guyana Amazon Warriors as he scored the most runs in the tournament scoring 446 runs. He was the opener for the warriors and was responsible for giving them a great start in every match of the tournament.
Another opener who had given a great entertaining start to the match was Dwayne Smith. In this tournament he scored 353 runs but managed to score 2 centuries and a single half century. In this tournament though the captain of the defending champions and the most devastating batsmen of the world Chris Gayle were seen playing a different role. He was seen playing a role of an anchor in all the matches while other players scored some quick runs for the team.
The tournament also saw some of the great bowling performances. Ravi Rampaul was the highest wicket taker of the tournament taking 18 wickets but the twenty 20 cricket is about game changers. The tournament saw many such performances which changed the game. Krishmar Santokie was one such bowler who took many wickets giving away less runs. Daniel Vettori the old guard was yet another bowler who managed to ball his 4 overs in a match making all the difference. Sunil Narine yet another mystery bowler was the man to watch while bowling as his 4 overs made a difference in every match as his bowling still remains a mystery to the best batsmen in the world. He created a record this season by bowling a maiden super over in the tournament which has not been achieved by anyone yet in the world of cricket.
Andre Russell was a name in the tournament that shone yet again. He was a player who with his all-round performance made sure that he made his team proud winning the game a lot of time. His hard hitting batting has seen some great runs being made in the end of the match which resulted into a win every time.
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