Blunted Tridents pin hopes on bowling

Barbados Tridents make their debut in the Champions League as the winners of the second edition of the Caribbean Premier League. They are the first CPL side in the CLT20. Previously, the winners of the regional competition, the Caribbean T20, earned qualification. Trinidad & Tobago have played in three seasons of the CLT20, while Guyana participated in 2010.

Led by Kieron Pollard, Tridents lost their opening game at the CPL, but won six of their next eight to finish at the top of the table. Their 69-run win against Trinidad & Tobago Red Steel and 88-run thrashing to Jamaica Tallawahs, the defending champions, in their last two league games reflected the momentum Tridents had gathered. That inertia appeared to have deserted them as they were reduced to 8 for 2 in the final against Guyana Amazon Warriors, but Dwayne Smith and Shoaib Malik revived the innings with half-centuries. However, in an anticilmactic finish,Tridents found themselves on the right side of the D/L score after repeated rain interruptions to be crowned the champions.

Tridents took 60 wickets - the most in the CPL - and their three quicks Ravi Rampaul, Rayad Emrit and Jason Holder accounted for 39 of them. Rampaul rattled the batsmen with pace, Emrit was expensive at times but struck with regularity and Holder, the most economical of the three, held up run-scoring. Tridents' bowling has been left unaffected by player migration to foreign franchises and they have been bolstered with the addition of James Franklin, whose experience of playing in the IPL will be handy. Ashely Nurse and Jeevan Mendis provide spin-bowling options.

Tridents' batting in the Champions League will be cause of worry. Dwayne Smith, Shoaib Malik and Kieron Pollard had amassed 959 runs in CPL, but none of them are part of the squad. The fourth leading run-scorer was Jason Holder, with 108 runs, while no other batsman crossed 100. That hardly inspires confidence in conditions where tall scores are likely to be the norm. The onus will be on Neil McKenzie, who struggled in his first season of CPL, and fresh additions - Franklin, Dilshan Munaweera and Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura - to shore up the batting.

With 18 wickets, Ravi Rampaul was the leading wicket-taker in the CPL this year. Not only did he strike regularly - he took 11.6 balls to pick up a wicket - he was also economical at 6.77 runs an over. In a team that lacks big stars, Rampaul, as one of West Indies' leading fast bowlers, will have the responsibility of reining in opposition batsmen.

Tridents were keen to explore Jason Holder, the batsman capabilities and pushed him up the order during the CPL, even using him as No. 3. Holder may not have set the scene on fire but his 30-ball 48 against St Lucia Zouks showed he doesn't mind being on the receiving end of the ball either.

First appearance in the CLT20