Play-Off 2 in the 2016 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) will take place on Thursday 4th August at Warner Park, Basseterre St. Kitts, between the St. Lucia Zouks and Trinbago Knight Riders.
This fixture, between the teams that finished in third and fourth positions in the qualifying table, is effectively a straight knockout quarter-final contest, as the losers are eliminated from the tournament, while the winners will go forward to face the losers of Wednesday’s Play-Off 1 between the Jamaica Tallawahs and the Guyana Amazon Warriors, for a place in the 2016 Grand Final.
The Zouks finished the qualifying phase of the 2016 CPL in the strongest form of all the competing sides. Looking to be on the brink of elimination from the competition going into the sequence of four home matches in Gros Islet, the Zouks won three games on the trot, before losing to Thursday’s opponents by 3-wickets, a run that put them on the brink of a play-off spot.
Two wins in Florida against the Tallawahs, who until that point had lost only one game through the entire 2016 campaign, ensured that the Zouks, who finished with a record of six wins and four defeats, would be extending their season for at least one more fixture.
The Knight Riders finished with a record of five wins and five losses, leaving them in fourth position at the end of the qualifying phase of 2016 CPL, but in the end, comfortable qualifiers as the result of the poor form shown by the Barbados Tridents who were the one side capable of denying them a play-off position.
Although they defeated Thursday’s opponents in Match 24, they were beaten by the Zouks on home soil in Port of Spain way back in Match No. 1, when after posting 162-6, they couldn’t contain their opponents, who reached their target for the loss of four wickets with five deliveries remaining.
