Caribbean Premier League Betting Tips

The teams and early champions

Guyana Amazon Warriors, Jamaica Tallawahs, Barbados Tridents, Trinbago Knight Riders, St Lucia Zouks and Antigua Hawksbills were the six franchises that contested the first season. The Hawksbills lasted just two disappointing seasons, playing in the 2013 and 2014 tournaments, finishing second last and last, before being put out of their misery and decommissioned.

What the league lost in Antigua, it regained in the form of St Kitts & Nevis Patriots, which became the CPL’s first expansion franchise in 2015.

The opening edition of the tournament in 2013 was won by the Tallawahs, who beat the Warriors in the final to be crowned the first-ever CPL champions.

The next year, in 2014, the Warriors once again fell at the final hurdle – their conquerors this time being Barbados Tridents.

Trinbago’s domination

Since then, the league has been pretty much dominated by Trinbago Knight Riders.

Originally called the Trinidad & Tobago Red Steel, the franchise got off the mark in 2015, beating the Tridents in the final. That same year, they were taken over by Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment.

The group also owns a side named Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League. Thus, for uniformity’s sake and brand growth, the new owners renamed their new acquisition to Trinbago Knight Riders, where the first name is a portmanteau of Trinidad and Tobago, and the second and third names are lent by the parent franchise from Kolkata.

Anyway, the re-branded franchise has blossomed under new ownership, winning four of the next six CPLs, including two back-to-back in 2017 and 2018 as well as last year’s in 2020, which makes them the reigning champions. In the same span of time, when they didn’t win, they secured third-place finishes, which further demonstrates their domination.

Important betting patterns

The general rule of the thumb for gamblers interested in the CPL is to avoid betting against the Red Steel, unless of course the odds are really tall, which they often are for their opponents. Generally, if it’s a 50-50 bet, more often than not, you can count on the Knight Riders to get the job done.

In T20 competitions, where the margins are thin and the format so short, such continued and lengthy dominance are rare. But based on recent evidence, the TKR juggernaut is unlikely to slow down anytime soon. In the 2020 rendition of the CPL, the franchise were as flawless as any franchise has ever been in any T20 league anywhere on planet Earth.

They went a perfect 10-10 in the round robin stages, shellacking one opponent after another. Those looking for upsets in the play-offs set themselves up for more disappointment as the Knight Riders again blew their semi-final and final opponents out of water, winning both the games by nine and eight wickets respectively.

Their dominance of the CPL means that Trinbago now boasts both the highest scorer (Lendl Simmons) and the highest wicket-taker (Dwayne Bravo).

Add to their ranks a T20 superstar and six-hitting machine such as Kieron Pollard and others pretty much only have a puncher’s chance, if even that.

That said, the fickle nature of T20 cricket is such that even with Trinbago’s rich history, the bookmakers stay wary and do no assign them super favorite odds. They are still a high-risk low-reward play but not as much as you would expect for a four-time defending champion in a league that’s just seven years old.

For instance, in last year’s final, the flawless Trinbago, despite clean-sweeping the round-robin stage, fetched odds of 1.43 in semi-final 1 against the Tallawahs and 1.50 in the final against St Lucia Zouks.