Knight Riders, Stars square off at Oval

The teams met in the opening match of the CPL on Friday in St Lucia, with the Knight Riders coming out on top by nine wickets.

In a media conference at the Oval yesterday, TKR captain Dwayne Bravo said he was glad his team got off to a winning start.

“We are happy to get our first game under our belt, it’s always good to win cricket games especially in a tournament like the CPL that is so competitive,” Bravo said.

The Knight Riders will play five matches in the next eight days at home. Bravo wants his team to have a good run at home, but knows the CPL is challenging.

Bravo said, “It is a tough competition.

Ideally we will like to win as much as possible but you got to be realistic.

Playing five games at home I will be happy to win three out of those five.” Bravo is also counting on the support at the Oval.

“Playing home in Trinidad is always good, because we have that crowd factor that always give us that extra boost and support.

We know the conditions very well, but all the teams have a lot of good international players and local players as well.” South African Hashim Amla was set to join the team this week after the conclusion of the South Africa Test series against England.

However, Amla has been ruled out of the CPL due to injury.

Stars captain Darren Sammy knows his team was disappointing on Friday against TKR, but says the Stars will improve. “We were very short, we did not look like a team but it is just the first game of the tournament,” Sammy said.

“Last year in the same fixture we defeated them here at home so hopefully we could get some inspiration from that, but one game does not win you a tournament.

We will definitely improve and there is no better place to start that path to what we want to achieve than right here in their own back yard.” Sammy said it is good to get the poor performances out of the way. “We played a poor game but I am not counting my guys out. I have some excellent quality in my team and it is a game of cricket. It is good to get the bad ones out of the way very early.” After tonight’s match TKR will play Jamaica Tallawahs at 8 pm on Wednesday, Guyana Amazon Warriors at 9 pm on Friday, Barbados Tridents at 9 pm on Saturday and St Kitts/Nevis Patriots at 8 pm on Monday. All matches will be played at the Queen’s Park Oval.