CPL 2020 gets underway today with the first match of the tournament to be played between Trinbago Knight Riders and Guyana Amazon Warriors at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad. Here are some of the fantasy cricket tips for Game 1 of CPL 2020 –
Brian Lara Cricket Academy has traditionally had one of the slowest decks in the Caribbean and the average first innings score in T20 cricket at this venue has only been 130. Also, the team batting first has emerged victorious every time.
This gives the indication that it will be one of the low scoring games and the all-rounders who can add value to the side with both bat and ball are going to be the most important players.
The ideal fantasy cricket tips would be to fill your sides with all-rounders rather than the specialist batsmen who might find it difficult to score freely on this deck and then they might not have the opportunity to earn points with the ball either.
Let’s go with the combination of a wicket-keeper, three specialist batsmen, four all-rounders and three specialist bowlers.
Wicket-keeper
There are a couple of choices for the wicket-keeper’s slot – Nicholas Pooran and Tim Siefert. The advantage with Pooran is that he is one of those few non-Asian players around the world who have got the ability to score at a good clip on slow and sluggish surfaces.
Siefert, on the other hand, is more comfortable against pace and he likes the ball coming onto the bat, rather than the ball holding into the surface. So, he might not be ideally suited to the pitch at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy.
Batsmen
On slow and sluggish pitches, the best time to bat is at the top of the order as the ball doesn’t stick into the surface too much when it’s new and hard, which is why we will pick two openers in our fantasy XI.
Brandon King has proved his worth in the CPL before and he was one of the main reasons why Guyana reached the final of the last season of CPL. So, he will be one of the openers along with Munro who was also fairly consistent for Trinbago last season.
Sherfane Rutherford is not an opener, but he is a skillful player of spin down the order and he comes at a price of only 8.5 cr. in the dream11 price listing. Low pricing for the third batsman allows you to save your budget for the set of all-rounders.
All-rounders
Dwayne Bravo, Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Keemo Paul are the straight picks as all-rounders as all four of them are expected to do a fair bit with both bat and ball for their respective teams and all of them are impact players as well.
We, with our fantasy cricket tips, would advise you to have Pollard as the captain of your fantasy XI as he is one of those players who can clear the boundary even if he bats against an old and soft ball which doesn’t quite come on to the bat.
Bowlers
Imran Tahir is not one of those spinners who only contain the batsmen. He is a wicket-taker and that’s why he must be in your fantasy XI as he can fetch you points with his wickets and he should also be the vice-captain of the XI as he is going to be the most penetrative bowler on show out of both sides.
Jayden Seales and Romario Shepherd should be the two seamers in your fantasy XI. Both of them come at a low budget, but they are emerging bowlers and are good enough to bowl wicket-taking deliveries under pressure which is what you want from the bowlers in your fantasy XI as it’s ultimately the wickets which will earn you points.
