'Lucky' Royals out TKR's light in contentious CPL eliminator

FOUR-TIME Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League (CPL) champions Trinbago Knight Riders saw their title hopes dimmed in the 2024 season on October 1 when they suffered a nine-wicket loss to Barbados Royals via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) Method in a contentious eliminator match at the Providence Stadium, Guyana.

Batting first, TKR got to 168 for three after 19.1 overs, but their innings was halted by a lighting outage at the venue, which saw as many as three of the lighting towers at the venue losing power.

Guyana's Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson, explained the stadium lights lost power due to a "damaged underground cable," and he thanked the workers involved for rescuing the situation to allow the continuation of the game.

With TKR star batsman Nicholas Pooran on 91 not out at the time and nearing a second consecutive CPL ton, the players were asked to leave the field at approximately 9 pm. There were lengthy deliberations involving captains Kieron Pollard and Rovman Powell, with CPL CEO Pete Russell and operations director Michael Hall spearheading the critical on-field discourse.

For two hours, the fate of the eliminator tie was up in the air, and TKR appeared to be headed for the second qualifier (October 4) by virtue of their third-placed finish on the CPL table.

With a cut-off time for the resumption of the game set at 10.52 pm, the Royals got a lifeline when power was restored to the lights just before the appointed cut-off period.

With five overs constituting a match in the T20 format, Barbados were set a revised target of 60 runs.

On the back of a ruthless unbeaten innings of 50 from 17 balls by David Miller, the Royals clinched the eliminator with four balls to spare as the South African left-hander drilled Terrance Hinds for a pair of sixes.

A bitterly tough pill for TKR to swallow, captain Kieron Pollard took the loss in stride. At the post-match ceremony, he said, "once the lights were on...we were always ready and willing to play within the rules and regulations of the game."

On the opposite side, Powell and the Royals were counting their lucky stars after being on the brink of elimination.

"At one point, we thought we were out of the competition when the lights started giving problems," the Royals captain said.

"But we knew once the lights came back at a certain time, it was our game to lose. Five overs, 60 runs. Not very difficult."

TKR's innings had been set up beautifully by Pooran, whose 60-ball knock was filled with six fours, five sixes and a clear intention to bat the duration of his team's innings. In the process, Pooran went past the 500-run mark to go atop the batting charts for 2024.

Via his Facebook account, Ramson explained what led to the untimely darkness at Providence.

"I would like to thank these (people) and a few others who came to the rescue last night after three of the stadium lights lost power because of what they identified as a damaged underground cable," Ramson said.

"These lights get tested before every game as a standard operational requirement for international games. After the lights went down, the standby team and other people immediately activated to identify the problem and devise a solution under a time-crunch pressure situation to avoid the game being called off."

Ramson said after two of the three lighting towers were restored, "one team didn't want to continue."

At the post-match presentation, Pollard said it would have been "dark and pretty dangerous for both teams" to continue without all the lights being fixed.

The solution, Ramson said, "was to run an entirely new feed to the affected light which was done quickly and the game continued albeit in a shortened format in accordance with game rules."

Newsday asked CPL's head of PR and communications Peter Miller if the organisation had planned to issue a release on the incident.

Miller pointed Newsday to a joint-release from Guyana's Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport and the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL), and indicated at the time, the league didn't have anything further to add.

The joint statement said all matches at Providence are powered by independent generating sets and not by the GPL grid.

"During the 19th over, the three floodlights that were powered by an independent generator lost power, thus disrupting the match. The GPL technical team on standby immediately began rendering assistance and restored power to two of three floodlights on the same circuit," the statement said.

"The stadium’s technical staff and GPL worked assiduously to restore power to the third floodlight which had a technical fault with the underground cable feeding power. A substitute cable was installed quickly to have this floodlight operational. This was achieved around 10.51 pm."

Just past 11.30 pm on a long, tense evening in Providence, and approximately five hours after winning the toss, Pollard and TKR were sent home from the tournament, although their on-field performance wasn't the determining factor.

"At the end of the day, the ground staff and the people in charge did what they had to do to get a game of cricket in. Obviously, with the rules we could have got a game in, and here we are now," Pollard said.

"If rain fell or something like that, it would have been the same sort of instance where you have to gear up and be prepared to play...certain things happened that we have no control over.

"You can control what you can control, and what you can't control, you gotta run with it."

In the second qualifier against the Guyana Amazon Warriors or St Lucia Kings on October 4, the Royals would hope the light shines on them again as they aim for a spot in the 2024 CPL final.