Kings hope to maintain momentum in home opener

Nine games have been played in the 2024 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL), and the Saint Lucia Kings are on top. With wins in each of their first two matches, the Kings meet the Guyana Amazon Warriors on Saturday night at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground in Gros Islet. It will be the first of their four matches at home. The Kings lead the six-team standings with four points and a net run rate of 1.503 from their wins over the two bottom teams, Antigua & Barbuda Falcons and St Kitts & Nevis Patriots. The defending champion Warriors beat the same two teams as well, but by lesser margins. The Kings, in fact, completed one of the most exciting run chases ever seen in the CPL, overhauling a target of 202 for victory. Key players in that game were Sri Lanka’s Bhanuka Rajapaksa and New Zealand’s Tim Seifert. Crucially, those two were the fourth and sixth batsmen to come to the crease in difficult conditions, with the team 24-4 when they joined forces. In the second game against the Patriots, meanwhile, Afghanistani left-arm wrist spinner Noor Ahmad took 3-18 to hold the opposition to 142-7. The 19-year-old led a...