In the 2022 Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) T20 tournament, Trinbago Knight Riders missed out on a place in the playoffs for the first time in the tournament’s ten-year history. That’s because they finished the tournament at the bottom of the table.
TKR this season represented some big players like West Indies limited-overs captain Nicholas Pooran, former West Indies captain Kieron Pollard, all-rounder Andre Russell, mystery spinner Sunil Narine and Ravi Rampaul
However, four-time champion TKR, the most successful team in CPL history, finished last in the tournament with 7 points. It has been a tough season for them and the season ended with three wins, six losses and one draw.
St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots were the other teams that failed to qualify for the playoffs, finishing fifth with eight points.
TKR saw their slump with the bat as well as with the ball and when TKR allowed the hosts to score 173 for 6, those 37 runs came in the last two overs. On what went wrong for TKR this edition, Pollard said:
“When you look at it, I think the way we played throughout the entire tournament, we deserve to be in the place we are right now. To play ten games as a batting unit and not cross 160, I think that was disappointing.”
“From a bowling perspective, having teams on the back foot and giving it away in the back end more often than not, we deserve to be where we are at the bottom of the table.”
About the tournament, Pollard said he has repeatedly requested the organizers to host another tournament in the Caribbean to help develop the next generation of T20 stars. Former West Indies captain and current St. Lucia Kings head coach Darren Sammy had also made requests about this.
“Well done to them (the CPL organizers) but for me, it is all about West Indies cricket as well and I have been advocating that alongside this tournament, in order to unearth new talent, we need to have another tournament where the younger guys can get an opportunity.”
He continued,
“This tournament, obviously is money-making and guys want to win trophies and people invest a lot in it. We have done some great things here and well done to Guyana tonight. They qualified in front of their home crowd, so well done to them.”
Also, captain Kieron Pollard apologized to the TKR fans for the poor performance of TKR.
“We apologize to the TKR fans and the Trinidad fans back home. Obviously, myself as a batsman, I didn’t do what was actually needed but these things happen in cricket and if you want to play cricket for a long time, you have to go through the waves and this is one of the times we need to stand together and stay strong.”