CricViz analyst Freddie Wilde picks St Kitts & Nevis Patriots likely XI and identifies their strengths & weaknesses ahead of the 2020 CPL.
Likely XI
- Evin Lewis – left-hander
- Chris Lynn – right-hander
- Ben Dunk – left-hander & wicket-keeper
- Dinesh Ramdin – right-hander & wicket-keeper
- Joshua Da Silva – right-hander & wicket-keeper – Emerging Player
- Jamhar Hamilton – right-hander & wicket-keeper
- Sohail Tanvir – left-hander & left-arm fast medium
- Rayad Emrit – right-arm medium fast
- Alzarri Joseph – right-arm fast
- Sheldon Cottrell -left-arm fast medium
- Ish Sodhi – leg spin
Squad players: Nick Kelly (left-hander), Dominic Drakes (left-hander, left-arm medium fast – Emerging Player), Colin Archibald (left-hander, left-arm fast medium), Jon-Russ Jagessar (off spin), Imran Khan (leg spin)
Strengths
Three superb and varied batsmen
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots boast three elite T20 batsmen in their team: Chris Lynn, Evin Lewis and Ben Dunk. All three players represent a nice range of specific batting skills. Lynn is a reliable eviscerator of pace bowling and Dunk a destroyer of spin while Lewis manages to excel against both. The Patriots can be expected to open with Lewis and Lynn – a right-hand, left-hand combination that has a good claim to being the best opening partnership in the league. Dunk is likely to come in through the middle overs where more spin is bowled.
Pace bowling
The Patriots are well-stocked in the pace bowling department with an all-time great T20 bowler Sohail Tanvir, one of T20’s hottest properties in Sheldon Cottrell and the exciting young tearaway Alzarri Joseph. This trio represent the best pace bowling unit in the league. They are particularly strong in the Powerplay with Tanvir and Cottrell being strongest in the first six overs. They are a little more vulnerable at the death but not as exposed as some other teams this season – death bowling is not a strength for any team this year.
CRICVIZ PROFESSIONAL ANALYSIS
Weaknesses
Spin bowling
The Patriots only have one frontline spin bowler: the New Zealander Ish Sodhi. For a league that is likely to produce conditions that will greatly assist spin bowling, this is far from ideal. The Patriots pace bowlers are high quality but their shortage of spinners is likely to count against them. The absence of Fabian Allen will hurt their death overs batting most significantly but also robs them of a useful spinner as well. In his absence the pair of Imran Khan and Jon-Russ Jagessar—who have only bowled 516 balls between them in T20 cricket—will carry the rest of the spin burden.
Death overs batting
The Patriots have a strong top order—led by Lynn, Lewis and Dunk, but those three batsmen are going to have to do the bulk of the work because the middle and lower order is far weaker. The primary reason for this is the loss of Allen who is a supreme death overs hitter and whose absence has dealt a massive blow to their batting strategy. Instead St Kitts will look to the likes of Dinesh Ramdin, Emerging Player Joshua Da Silva, Jahmar Hamilton and Tanvir for middle and lower order runs. The Patriots are one of three teams (St Lucia Zouks and Trinbago Knight Riders being the other two) with five overseas players in their squad. They could potentially rejig their overseas balance by bringing in the New Zealand batsman Nick Kelly to bolster the middle order but this would probably mean leaving out Tanvir who is one of their best bowlers and a useful hitter himself.
Freddie Wilde is an analyst at CricViz, @fwildecricket
