CPL 2015 1st Semi-Final Preview: Jamaica Tallawahs vs Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel

By Bruce Ogden On July 23, 2015

The final four in this year's CPL have finally revealed themselves. While the finishing order went down to the wire, few would argue that the best four teams are not playing off for a shot at the 2015 title.

Tonight's first sudden death semi-final sees the red hot Steel - winners of three of their past four games - take on the Tallawahs - losers of three of their last four games - at Port of Spain in Trinidad. Form and the so called home ground advantage would suggest that the Steel should enter this match as favourites. Although the head to head record between these teams this season is knotted at 1-1, when the teams last met just four days ago, also in Trinidad, it was the Steel who held on for a hard fought win to give them the psychological advantage heading into this match.

Cricmetric's pre match prediction model has the Steel as slight favourites for tonight's match with a win probability of 53%. This prediction assumes both teams field the same line-ups as they did in their most recent matches, which is far from a certainty.

The Tallawahs have struggled to nail down their three and four batting combination all season. In their most recent game against the Steel they went back to Jayawardene, who once again failed, scoring only 3 runs to bring his season tally to just 18 runs. Despite Jayawardene's excellent career record, the Tallawahs will be strongly tempted to recall Bonner for tonight's match. In one innings against the Tridents on 11th July, Bonner almost doubled Jayawardene's entire returns from the campaign scoring an undefeated 31 off 36 balls in difficult circumstances. Including Bonner in the team at the expense of Jayawardene however only increases the Tallawahs probability of winning from 47% to 48%.

The Steel have had their similar issues with the number 3 spot. Scantalebury-Searles search for runs has brought scant reward, his campaign yielding a Jayawardene-like 16 runs from 4 innings. Perkins, who played a match winning innings against the Tridents on 11th July, would appear to be a better option at the top of the order for the Steel. The inclusion of Perkins would improve the Steel's probability of winning from 53% to 56%.

With both bowling line ups evenly matched, the Steels slight favouritism is driven by their stronger middle order batting line up. Of course if the real Chris Gayle turns up tonight that advantage is negated.

Pre-Match Predictions

Jamaica Tallawahs

As mentioned, the Tallawahs are not bringing any positive momentum into tonight's crunch match. You have to go back two weeks to 9th July to find their last victory, importantly against the Red Steel, at home in Kingston. In that match Gayle pounded the Steel bowling in scoring 105 runs off just 57 balls. In response the Steel top order collapsed with four of their top five batsmen scoring just two runs between them.

Since then however the Tallawahs have lost at least 7 wickets in each of their last three matches, with their best total being a sub-par 138/9, also against the Steel. In these three matches, no Tallawahs batsman has crossed 50 and only Taylor has had provided more than one above average contribution with the ball.

The Tallawahs have not won at Port of Spain in the CPL since 2013, and they will need to return to the top of their game tonight to stay alive in the 2015 CPL.

Players to Watch

It goes without saying that Chris Gayle's performance will have a huge impact on the result of tonight's match. Gayle has been the star performer with the bat in the group stages of the 2015 CPL. He is the top scorer in the league with 400 runs at the overpowering strike rate of 161.9.

His innings' of 90 off 36 against the Zouks (contribution score of 66 runs above average*) and 105 off 57 against the Steel (contribution score of 57 runs above average) are rated 1st and 2nd respectively in terms of the biggest contributions to team performance by a batsman in not only this year's tournament, but the last three CPLs.

The fortunes of the Tallawahs this year have been closely linked to Gayle's performance. Gayle has scored 30 or more runs four times in this year's CPL - these are the only matches the Tallawahs have won. Gayle's contribution score (+139.5) is the highest of any batsman this CPL, the second highest being Fletcher (CS +73 runs above average), who has made barely half the impact of Gayle.

With the exception of Gayle and Russell, no other Tallawahs batsman has an overall above average contribution for the Tallawahs batting this season. In fact Jayawardene, Deonarine and Blackwood have the dubious honour of not making one single above average contribution between them, combined scoring just 118 runs at a strike rate of 91 in the 13 innings they have played in this CPL.

Put simply, if Gayle fires tonight then the Tallawahs have a strong chance of upsetting the Steel. If he doesn't then apart from Russell and perhaps Walton, it is difficult to see where the runs will come from to make a competitive total.

The Tallawahs have relied heavily on just five players - Vettori, Russell, Santokie, Theron and Taylor - to do the lion's share of the bowling this season. Although these bowlers have a strong historical record in their past match-ups with the players in the Steel batting line up, there has not been enough consistency in their outputs this campaign to suggest with any confidence they will be able to deliver on their potential tonight.

Only Taylor has made an above average contribution in more the half the games he has played this season (5 out of 9 games). Furthermore, only twice out of the 9 games played have 3 or more bowlers delivered an above average performance for the Tallawahs, compared to five occasions of 3 or more bowlers contributing above average performances for the Steel. The lack of bowling options for the Tallawahs reduces their ability to use variety to disrupt the batsmen's rhythm and target specific weaknesses of the opposition. The Tallawahs can only cover one of the possible four spin option bases in their mainstream bowling - via the left arm finger spinning of Dan Vettori, line up. Gayle and Deonarine can provide a second option in terms of right arm finger spinning however they have only been used sparingly in this CPL bowling a combined total of just three overs. The Steel on the other hand can cover three of the four spin bases among their mainstream bowlers and are only short a left arm wrist spinner to complete the set.

* Refer to the preview of match 30 for an explanation of the methodology behind Contribution Scores.

Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel

Coming into their last match against the Warriors in Guyana, the Steel were the form team in the 2015 CPL, riding three straight wins including a comprehensive hiding of the table topping Tridents and a seven run victory over their opponents tonight. A win against the Warriors would have given them the major psychological advantage of defeating all of their fellow finalists in the week leading up to the semis. However with first place in the league within their sights the Steel wilted to a disappointing loss against the Warriors. Coming back home the Steel have demonstrated that they have the batting and bowling firepower to silence the Tallawahs. Tonight is their opportunity for their senior players to stand up and lead them to a rematch with the Guyana Warriors for a place in Sunday's 2015 CPL final.

Players to Watch

The only positive with the bat coming out of Tuesday's loss to the Warriors was the form of Delport at the top of the order. Delport has made some useful contributions throughout the campaign but Tuesday's knock of 44 off 30 balls followed on from his hard hitting 20 off 6 against the Patriots and marked the first time he has made consecutive above average contributions to the team this season. He and Kallis are the only Steel batsmen to have made positive contributions with the bat in more than half their appearances during the regular season. Kallis' failure with the bat on Tuesday was his first in 7 innings and given that the Steel win 83% of matches where Kallis makes a positive contribution, it was no surprise that the Steel went on to lose that match.

The Steel will be looking for Kallis and the Bravo brothers to bounce back against the Tallawahs tonight. The failure of both Bravo brothers with the bat on Tuesday marked the first time in the last four games when at least one of them did not make a significant contribution to the team's scoring. In the three games prior to that, the Bravo brothers combined had contribution scores (representing runs contributed above average with the bat and runs conceded below average with the ball) of +60, +30 and +15. Given that the winning margins in those games was 72 runs, 18 runs and 7 runs respectively, it could be argued that the contributions of the Bravo brothers alone were almost entirely responsible for that three game winning streak.

Benn and Dwayne Bravo's performances with the ball against the Warriors were probably the team highlights in the bowling department. It was Dwayne's fourth successive excellent contribution with the ball, over which period his contribution score has been an excellent 46 runs better than average. For Benn it was by far his most economical spell of the season, conceding just 4.3 rpo compared to his next best performance of 6.0 rpo. Davis on the other hand had his least effective outing of the CPL to date, which was partly expected given that the Warriors batsmen had proven track records against left arm fast medium bowling. Gayle aside, the Tallawahs top 6 have a poor historical match up against left arm fast medium bowling which augurs well for Davis to have a strong match tonight.

Key Match Ups

• We have already highlighted the importance of Gayle being in the runs tonight for the Tallawahs chances of victory. Over his long and distinguished career, Gayle shows no historical weakness against any particular bowling style or type. Out of the likely Steel bowling line-up tonight, Gayle has performed strongly in the past against each of them except for Cooper, against who he has faced 22 balls historically for 15 runs at a strike rate of 68. Against the remaining Steel bowlers he has scored 309 runs off 181 balls at a strike rate of 171. Expect Gayle to return to the runs tonight and the Steel to use Cooper to try and counter his charge.
• In fact the Tallawahs in general do not play right arm medium bowling well, and Cooper has had past success against the majority of the Tallawahs batsmen.
• Apart from Gayle, Russell is the only other batsman in the Tallawahs team to have a positive record against the Steel's bowling line up. If given the opportunity, expect Russell to make a useful contribution tonight. If Gayle and Russell both make useful contributions then, by their standards, the game might already be beyond the Steels reach.
• The bowler that the Tallawahs batsmen have faced least of over their careers is Davis. Gayle aside, the Tallawahs top 6 has a poor record against left arm medium fast bowling. Look for Davis to feature strongly for the Steel tonight
• For the Steel batsmen, the match up against the Tallawahs bowling line up is fraught with danger. Only Kallis and Delport have an overall positive record against the Tallawahs bowlers, and both have negative records against Vettori. In addition to Vettori, Kallis has also performed worse than average against Russell and Theron. The Steel need Kallis and Delport to fire tonight but the Tallawahs have the equipment to douse the flames.
• The match up analysis between each teams batting and opposing bowling line ups suggests that ball should dominate bat tonight.