CPL 2024: de Kock and Cornwall advance Barbados Royals to playoff, defeat SKN Patriots

Barbados Royals advanced to the playoff round in the Caribbean Premier League 2024 by defeating St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the 18th match on Tuesday night. Quinton de Kock and Cornwall ensured the Royals won the match at their home ground by nine wickets and remained undefeated throughout their campaign. 

The match turned out to be memorable for the Royals due to the showcase of some brilliant performances from the batting and bowling sides. After winning the toss, the team decided to bowl and sent the Patriots to batting first.

The decision favoured the team as they restricted Patriots to 110 runs which is the lowest –ever target of the CPL 024. The entire team has been turned down by exceptional bowling spell of Royals in 19 overs. 

Some batting performances were seen on the ground from SKN Patriots including Andre Fletcher who made 32 runs, Joshua Da Silva who made 25 runs and Anrich Nortje who made 22 runs. 

Rakheem Cornwall‘s 5-wicket Haul

Cornwall from Royals blasted SKN Patriots in just 110 runs by taking five wickets in the CPL 2024 match. While playing for four overs, he gave only 16 runs and took crucial wickets of Andre Fletcher, Mikyle Louis, Wanindu Hasaranga, Odean Smith and Ryan John. 

He also bowled 15 dot balls in his four-over spell and received support from Naveen-ul-Haq who picked up 3 wickets in 21 runs in his four-over spell. The former also took crucial wicket of Joshua Da Silva. 

Both the bowlers have made it easy for the batters of Royals to chase the target in just 11 overs and reached the playoffs of the CPL 2024. 

Rahkeem Cornwall was also given “Player of the Match” award for achieving his career-best figures. 

Knock of Quinton de Kock 

After securing maiden century in CPL tournament, de Kock was in full confidence and showcased his classic batting skills with match winning half-century. He scored 59 runs off 38 deliveries and remained unbeaten throughout the match with three fours and four sixes. He made the team chase down a target of 111 without any fuss, winning with 52 balls remaining.

CPL 2024 journey for SKN Patriots

The journey of CPL 2024 for SKN Patriots remained quite flat with only one victory at the opening match against Antigua and Barbuda Falcons on August 29, 2024. After playing eight matches in the tournament so far, the team lost seven of them and stood on the bottom of the table throughout CPL. 

With two matches remaining in hand, it is impossible for the team to reach into the next rounds of the finals as they are now out of the tournament. SKN Patriots won the CPL trophy once in 2021 under the captainship of DJ Bravo. 

On the other hand, Barbados Royals won the CPL trophy for two times in 2014 and 2019. In 2024, the team stood on the first position in the points table with 10 points for suffering only one defeat in the tournament.