Having managed to get past Hobart Hurricanes in its Champions League opener, Kings XI Punjab must have collected more reasons to be relieved than to rejoice on Thursday night.
The failure of the top-order was pushed into the background by some timely rescue operations carried out by Glenn Maxwell, all-rounder Thisara Perera and skipper George Bailey. But, for Kings XI, concerns remain.
Bailey knows that his men can score more runs than the bowlers are capable of conceding. Since Kings XI relies more on its batting, Bailey will expect the top-order to fire against Barbados Tridents on Saturday.
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Tridents will be without their regulars — Kieron Pollard, Shoaib Malik and Dwayne Smith — who have opted for Mumbai Indians, Hurricanes and Chennai Super Kings, in that order, in the competition.
The team includes a good number of all-rounders in skipper Rayad Emrit, Elton Chigumbura, James Franklin, Jason Holder, Raymond Reifer, Ravi Rampaul and Jeevan Mendis.
For the host, looking to keep its home record clean before returning a week later, much depends on the new-ball pair of Parvinder Awana and Anureet Singh.
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Perera made his presence felt with an all-round display on Thursday. Axar Patel is building on the gains from IPL while Karanveer Singh is working to live up to Bailey’s expectations.
Overall, Tridents appear to be a more balanced team while Kings XI has better quality in batting. Since the visiting team is somewhat of an unknown quantity as a unit, coach Sanjay Bangar’s homework on Tridents, will be paramount.