Montreal Tigers vs Toronto Nationals, Global Canada T20 League 2019, Match 15: Preview, predictions, likely XIs

Montreal Tigers and Toronto Nationals will meet for the final game of the first phase of group-stage fixtures of Global Canada T20 League 2019.

The Tigers need one more win to cement their play-off position. After a couple of bad outings, The Tigers bounced back last time to win the match against Edmonton Royals by four wickets. Fawad Ahmed had a decent outing after the Vancouver nightmare. Mohammad Naveed might be replaced by Isuru Udana as he is busy with UAE currently. The absence of Sunil Narine means a lot of dependency on Kyle Coetzer in the batting order.

With one win from four fixtures for Toronto means any slip-ups cannot be afforded. The bowlers have been expensive so far and conceded 191 and 222 runs to Edmonton Royals and Brampton Wolves respectively. They failed to defend 216 runs against Winnipeg Hawks. Sandeep Lamichhane played his first match of the tournament and took first wicket. He will be expected to bring some control on the bowling with Yuvraj Singh playing the role of a perfect all-rounder.  

Head to head: The last edition saw a close fight between these two with the National clinching victory by just one wicket with zero balls to spare.

Key Players:

Kyle Coetzer (Montreal Tigers): Coetzer has been a decent contributor so far and turned out to be the highest scorer for his team in two previous occasions. He will be a key player if the Tigers want to showcase a stable batting. A solid start by Coetzer is able to set the momentum for the Tigers.

Yuvraj Singh (Toronto Nationals): Yuvraj smashed a 22-ball 51 against the dangerous Vancouver Knights in the last encounter. His bowling was instrumental as well, especially against the Knights he emerged as the best bowler in the unit. Yuvraj’s all-rounder skill can change the fortune for the Nationals.

Likely XIs:

Montreal Tigers: Kyle Coetzer, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Anton Devcich, George Bailey (c), Dinesh Chandimal, Matthew Cross (wk), Scott Kuggeleijn, Dillon Heyliger, Nikhil Dutta, Fawad Ahmed, Isuru Udana

Toronto Nationals: Rodrigo Thomas, Brendon McCullum, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Yuvraj Singh (c), Moises Henriques, Chris Green, Mitchell McClenaghan, Mark Montfort, Salman Nazar, Jeremy Gordon, Sandeep Lamichhane

Prediction: Play-offs seem to be set for the Tigers.