CPL 2015 Match 22 Preview: Jamaica Tallawahs vs Guyana Amazon Warriors

By Bruce Ogden On July 12, 2015

The Guyana Amazon Warriors look to get their campaign back on track tonight against the Jamaica Tallawahs at Sabina Park. For the Warriors it is their final away game before their home stand starts and they would love to see their fans welcoming them home with a smile with a win tonight. For the Tallawahs it is a chance to seal their place firmly towards the top of the ladder as well as a chance to bounce back from yesterday's loss to the Tridents.

Cricmetric's pre match prediction model is showing the Warriors as favourites for tonight's match, with a win probability of 56%. This is largely driven by the strength and variety of the Warriors bowling line up, which features both left and right arm finger spinners and a wrist spinner. Refer to the tables below for the full set of match predictions.

Pre-Match Predictions

Jamaica Tallawahs

Despite losing to the Tridents yesterday, the Tallawahs are placed strongly on the ladder in third position, with two games in hand on the second placed Patriots and one game in hand on the competition leading Tridents.

As would be expected for a team featuring the best T20 batsman in the world, it has mainly been the Tallawahs batting that has propelled them to within touching distance of a top two spot. The Tallawahs batsmen have been striking at an above average 132.5 in this year's CPL, and facing 17.0 balls per inning, only marginally below the average of 17.4 balls per inning. The Tallawahs excellent strike rate is achieved on the back of their slugging power. The Tallawahs score 2.2 runs per scoring shot compared to the 2.0 average, which nullifies the fact they face more dot balls per over (2.3) than average (2.1). The Tallawahs top 3 batsmen of Gayle, Walton and Lynn have been particularly effective. Combined they have faced an average of 78.9 balls per innings, almost two-thirds of the entire inning, at a dominant strike rate of 142.9.

The Tallawahs bowling attack is conceding 128.2 runs per 100 balls in this CPL - higher than the 3 year average of 122.7 - mainly due to their inability to build pressure on the batsmen. Dan Vettori is the only Tallawahs bowler who delivers more dot balls per over (2.4) than average (2.2). Russell and Theron on the other hand have only been bowling 1.4 and 1.5 dots balls per over respectively which has resulted in the team metric dropping to a lowly 1.8.

Players to Watch

As mentioned, the top three batsmen for the Tallawahs have been in dynamic form and have the potential to take the game completely away from the Warriors. However the fact that Narine has a positive record against Gayle, Lynn and Walton might see Jayawardene be required build a platform for the Tallawahs. Jayawardene has had a below average 2015 CPL to date. Over the past 3 years he has averaged 19.5 balls per inning at a strike rate of 120.3. During this edition of the CPL he has faced just 5.3 balls per inning at a strike rate of less than 70.0. Admittedly with the top 3 firing so strongly he would not have been able to play his natural game as often as he would have liked, however these are still meek returns by his standards. As was shown in the game against the Tridents, when the top 3 don't fire it can't just be left up to Russell to deliver a competitive total.

Dan Vettori has a curious record. As we have come to expect from him, over the last 3 years he has delivered an exceptional economy rate of 112.2. Over this period however, he has only taken a wicket every 37.2 deliveries, almost double the average rate. In this CPL, his economy rate has again been better than average yet he has only taken two wickets in 132 deliveries, i.e. 66 deliveries per wicket. It is unusual for an economical spinner in T20 cricket not to have at least an average bowling strike rate. Maybe the wicket he took against the Tridents might be the start of a roll for Dan.

Guyana Amazon Warriors

Maybe with a bit more luck, the Warriors might not be the current minders of the wooden spoon after their first 5 matches of the 2015 CPL. Two narrow losses (the first by two runs, the second by one ball) surrounded by two convincing wins against the Patriots suggest that their remaining league games, all to be played at home after tonight, could give them the opportunity to challenge for a finals position. After all, they still have four games in hand on the second placed Patriots and it does not seem right that the team with the 4th best Net Run Rate is sitting last on the table.

The key to the Warriors achieving this goal will be to establish some consistency in their batting performances. On the plus side, the Warriors have chased down two above average totals with plenty of balls to spare. On the negative side, they have inexcusably been bowled out twice. While their overall batting strike rate of 130.9 is well above average (120.7), the average number of balls faced per batsman per inning is just 13.6, compared to the all-player-average over the last 3 years of 17.4. In fact only Fudadin (28.5 balls per inning) and Hodge (26.2 balls per inning) have been better than average in this regard.

While this is a disappointing stat, we actually should have seen it coming. Over the past 3 years, the players in the current Warriors squad have had a strike rate of 132.4 and face on average 14.2 balls per inning. In other words, the rather hit or miss nature of their batting performances to date in this CPL is completely in line with the squads performances over the past 3 years. With such a good team strike rate, the opportunity to exists for players like Akmal, Barnwell and Ramdin to be more selective in their shot making and set a platform to launch from in the death overs.

The Warriors bowling has been the strong point of their season to date. Their overall economy rate of 121.3 is better than the overall 3 year average of 122.7, and they have been taking a wicket every 16.7 balls, compared to the average of 19.3 balls. Overs 9-12 and 17-20 are where their bowlers have been particularly impressive, none more so than Permaul and Bishoo. Teams that possess both a quality finger spinner and a wrist spinner provide the fielding captain with more options to take batsmen out of their comfort zone, reduce the flow of runs and take wickets. In the Warriors case, they just happen to have both a left arm and right arm finger spinner, one of whom happens to be the best T20 finger spinner in the world.

Players to Watch

As mentioned, Fudadin and Hodge have been the mainstays of the Warriors batting line up in the CPL to date. The ageless Hodge has been striking at the exceptional rate of 141.2 while Fudadin has been playing more the anchor role with a strike rate of 96.5. Umar Akmal, Barnwell and Ramdin need to stand up for the Warriors. With all his experience and talent, Ramdin needs to spend more time at the crease. While his strike rate of 181.8 is Gayle-esque, facing an average of 13.2 balls per inning is not. Despite his high strike rate, Ramdin faces 2.4 dot balls per over, more than the average of 2.1 dot balls per over. However when Ramdin does score, he averages 3.0 runs per scoring shot, significantly higher than the all player average of 2.0 runs per scoring shot. Perhaps Ramdin needs to tone down this all or nothing approach, work the ball around a bit more if the ball is not there to hit, and launch a telling attack later in the inning.

Akmal and Barnwell are playing below their historical averages in terms of both strike rate and balls faced per innings. Akmal has only faced 3 balls in his two innings to date while Barnwell is averaging 12.3 balls per inning at a strike rate of 102.7, compared to his 3 year average of 15.1 balls per inning at a strike rate of 137.1. Both are quality players and need to fire for the Warriors. Barnwell in particular has had some success against the Tallawahs bowling line up in the past, so no time like the present!

It speaks volumes of the brilliance of Sunil Narine that his performances to date in this year's CPL are being questioned. His economy rate (104.9), balls per boundary conceded (11.1), dot balls per over (2.4) and runs conceded per scoring shot (1.7) are all significantly better than the average performer. However it is true that not all these metrics are up to his usual lofty standards. Over the past 3 years his economy rate has been 95.8 and he has averaged 2.8 dot balls per over, returns better than what we have seen in the 2015 CPL. On the other hand over the past 3 years he has conceded a boundary every 10.8 balls and conceded 1.8 runs per scoring shot, stats that he has bettered in this CPL. Most importantly, Narine is one of the few bowlers in world cricket to have a better than average record against Chris Gayle. That match up alone could help to decide the winner of this match.

Key Match Ups

• Over Gayle's T20 career, he has had dominant records against all bowling types except left arm wrist spinners and left arm fast bowling. While the Warriors have neither in their bowling attack, they do have Narine. Narine has an exceptional record against most batsman including Gayle, and would relish the opportunity to put pressure on Gayle early in his inning
• In fact Narine has previously bowled to 7 players in the Tallawahs line up, and has a positive record against each of them. Expect good returns from Narine tonight
• Russell has an above average batting record against the entire Warriors bowling line up except Narine. Narine can't bowl to everyone. Look for Russell to make some hay tonight.
• With the exception of Ramdin, the Warriors batting top 6 has a below average record against leg spin bowling. The only leg spin bowler in the Tallawahs team is Bonner, whose 13 deliveries in the past 3 years have yielded 30 runs. The Warriors have the ideal spin bowling balance in their line-up, while the Tallawahs do not
• It is unusual to see two openers with below average records against right arm fast medium bowlers, but Griffith and Fudadin have just that. At least one of these openers needs to get off to a good start against the Tallawahs quicks to take some pressure off their faltering middle order