Can Patriots rediscover early-season form to deny Amazon Warriors sixth final appearance?

..St Lucia Kings clash with TKR in first semi-final today
THE perennial bridesmaids meet 2017’s losing finalists. The Guyana Amazon
Warriors have been the ‘nearly’ team throughout the history of the CPL,
advancing to the final five times but never claiming the title.
The St Kitts & Nevis Patriots finished runner-up four years ago, coincidentally
during Chris Gayle’s first rodeo with this year’s host franchise, and he is now
back trying to turn a silver medal into gold.
The first half of this campaign saw these teams in far different situations to the
ones they enter the playoffs in. The Patriots shot like a cannon out of the gates,
winning their first five matches behind the sizzling form of Sherfane Rutherford,
who scored three fifties in that stretch.
But as Rutherford’s bat has cooled down, so have the Patriots as a whole,
winning just one of their last five league games.
The Amazon Warriors, meanwhile, only won two of their first five – needing a
Super Over to get over the line in one of them – but have since won four out of
five with different heroes stepping up on each occasion.
Whether it has been Gudakesh Motie, Romario Shepherd, Odean Smith, or the
captain Nicholas Pooran, the Warriors have been resilient thanks to a variety of
match-winning performances. The Warriors come into this match with all the
momentum but if the Patriots can rekindle their early-season form, it could be the
formula for an exciting semi-final.
Romario Shepherd had 36 runs in the tournament entering the final match of
round-robin play. There, he scored twice as many in incredible style, digging his
side out of a hole at 75 for 7 while scoring at a strike rate better than 200, then
took three wickets in the chase.

He’s been the tournament’s joint-leading wicket-taker with 18, and has been
especially valuable at the ‘death’.
Evin Lewis helped the Patriots clinch a spot in the playoffs with an unbeaten 101
off 52 balls on the penultimate day of group play, but was missing in action a day
later. He’s the tournament’s second-highest run-getter and is coming into good
form heading into the T20 World Cup.
Fitness permitting, Lewis should be back in the Patriots XI for the semi-final
clash. Joshua Da Silva’s half-century at the top of the order gives the selectors an
interesting dilemma as to who should take the gloves, though.
Another coin toss may happen between picking Sheldon Cottrell and leaving him
out for an extra spinner in Jon-Russ Jaggesar.
Meanhile, last year’s finalists will begin the semi-finals phase this year. St Lucia
Kings beat the defending champions Trinbago Knight Riders in their first fixture
this season, and lost the return leg immediately after. Since then, it’s been an
upward trend in general for both teams in a tightly fought league stage.
But Knight Riders come into today’s first semi-final with a victory in their last
game, and as the leaders of the league, while Kings come in with a crushing
defeat against Barbados Royals on Sunday in which they played without the
injured Faf du Plessis.
The search for a first CPL title will hinge a lot on du Plessis’ availability for this
game; while they managed to make up for his absence in the batting by re-
introducing Rahkeem Cornwall into the team as an opener, his absence in the
field was telling, particularly evident when stand-in captain Andre Fletcher had
several tense discussions with his bowlers as they tried to halt Royals’ charge in
the chase.
It is a groin injury that he picked up on Saturday, however, and getting him fully fit
by Tuesday is a near-impossible task; if he does end up playing, he is likely to be
playing through injury.
In comparison, Knight Riders have looked a far more settled side, having won five
of their last seven games, with one of their losses coming in a Super Over. They
will feel confident in their charge to win a fifth CPL title.