CPL 2017: Five talking points from the first week
It is been a week since the Caribbean Premier League started. As expected this cricket carnival of West Indies has produced some exciting cricket as well dramatic moments. Entertainment has been in abundance and the T20 superstars from across the world have delivered sterling performances.
The T20 bonanza started on August 4, and so far (as of 12 August) 10 matches have been played. These 10 T20 games witnessed quality cricket and interesting action and some games had a close finish as well.
Here we look at the five talking points from the first week of CPL that provided tremendous entertainment and have already made the tournament a success.
#5. McCullum - Munro blitz sinks St. Lucia stars
After restricting the St. Lucia Stars to a paltry score of 132 for nine, the Trinbago Knight Riders lost their opener, Sunil Narine in the first over.
Speculations of the match turning into a low-scoring drama became thick as only one boundary was scored in the next two overs.
But in the fourth over, the dam was broken. Colin Munro hammered two boundaries, one over point and one through mid-off against Obed McCoy and on the final delivery of the over, Brenden Mccullum flicked the ball beyond square leg fence to make it a 18 run over.
In the next over, McCullum collared Rankheem Cornwall for a six over long-on and then slammed Mitchell McClenaghan for another six over square leg in the last over of the powerplay.
Munro also scored two more boundaries against McClenaghan and at the end of the six overs, the Riders had raced to 57 runs.
After that, there was no looking back to the New Zealand pair who ransacked the Stars' bowlers to tighten their grip on the game. In the next 4.4 overs, the pair slammed 80 runs.
The Riders belted off 21, 14, 18, 14 and 13 runs in 7th, 8th,9th, 10th and the 11th over respectively to produce a dominating victory and crushed the Stars by nine wickets and 56 balls to spare.
McCullum blasted 58 runs off 27 balls while Munro remained not out on 66 off 39 balls. The pair added 132 runs in less than 10 overs to kick start the tournament in style.