Caribbean Premier League

Caribbean Premier League
Countries	West Indies
Administrator	Caribbean Premier League
Format	Twenty20
First tournament	2013
Tournament format	Group stage and knockout
Number of teams	6
Current champion	Barbados Tridents (1st title)
Most successful	Jamaica Tallawahs  Barbados Tridents (1 each)
Qualification	Champions League Twenty20
Most runs	Lendl Simmons (712)
Most wickets	Krishmar Santokie (33)
Website	cplt20.com
2014 Caribbean Premier League

The Caribbean Premier League (abbreviated to CPL or CPLT20) is an annual Twenty20 cricket tournament held in the Caribbean. It was created in 2013 and replaced the Caribbean Twenty20 as the premier Twenty20 competition in the Caribbean.^[1] It is currently sponsored by Limacol and thus officially titled the Limacol CPL. .^[2] The inaugural tournament was won by the Jamaica Tallawahs who defeated the Guyana Amazon Warriors in the final.^[3]

History

Twenty20 domestic cricket first appeared in an organized manner in the West Indies in 2006 with the privately organized Stanford 20/20. The second and last tournament of the Stanford competition was officially made part of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) calendar in 2008, after which the tournament ended when its sponsor Allen Stanford was charged with fraud and arrested in June 2009. The next organized Twenty20 competition came about with the creation of the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament by the WICB. The Caribbean Twenty20 was created to fill the gap left by the end of the Stanford 20/20 and to coincide with the 2010 Champions League Twenty20 tournament, which started less than two months after. The top domestic team from the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament qualified for the Champions League as the sole representative of the West Indies.^[4]

The WICB first announced the plans for the Caribbean Premier League in September 2012 when it was revealed that the board was "in the advanced stages of discussions to have a commercial Twenty20 league in the region" with an unnamed investor and hoped to conclude a deal before 30 September.^[5] On 14 September, the board met to make decisions on the structure and organization of the Caribbean Twenty20 CPL Schedule in January; to discuss the governance structure of the board and also discuss the planned commercial Twenty20 league and to finalize its structure. The Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) were also to be brought in to discuss issues pertaining to players in relation to the planned T20 league.^[6] On December 13, 2012, the WICB announced that they had finalized an agreement with Ajmal Khan^[7] founder of Verus International,a Barbados-based merchant bank, for the funding of the new franchise-based Twenty20 league to be launched in 2013. It was then expected that the new Caribbean Premier League was likely to comprise six Caribbean city-based franchises as opposed to the current territorial set-up with the majority of the players are to come from the West Indies. As part of the agreement, the WICB will receive additional funding from Verus International for additional retainer contracts for players in addition to the 20 annual retainer contracts the board currently funds.^[8]

Dates for the tournament were confirmed for the 2013 Caribbean Premier League as 29 July to 26 August. The 2014 and 2015 tournaments are planned to take place from 5 July to 10 August and 21 June to 26 July respectively.^[9]

Format

Six teams competed in the first CPLT20 tournament in 2013 – Jamaica Tallawahs, Red Steel, Barbados Tridents, Guyana Amazon Warriors, St. Lucia Zouks, Antigua Hawksbills. The CPL T20 tournament is played between six teams and is divided into a group stage and a knockout stage. In the group stage, the teams each play ten matches overall, three of which are at home. This unusual format occurs because all six teams are co-located at a single playing site for five sequential matches of the tourney, then the whole tournament moves to a new location for five more games (and so on). Six stadiums are used (see Venues below), each a home field for one of the teams. The playoff stage includes two semi-finals and a final to determine the winner of the tournament. All three of the elimination playoff games will be played at Queen's Park Oval.^[10]

Salary cap

As of April 2014, the Caribbean Premier League's salary cap is $350,000.^[11][12]

Teams

The tournament includes six franchises with 15 contracted players each, including a maximum of four international players and four players under the age of 23.^[13] Each team has one local and one international franchise player.^[1] The draft occurred on 5 June 2013.^[14]

Team	Captain	Head coach	Franchise players
			Local	International
Antigua Hawksbills (dormant)	Marlon Samuels	Tim Nielsen	Devon Thomas	Brad Hogg
Barbados Tridents	Kieron Pollard	Robin Singh	Kieron Pollard	Shoaib Malik
Guyana Amazon Warriors	Denesh Ramdin	Roger Harper	Sunil Narine	Mohammad Hafeez[15]
Jamaica Tallawahs	Chris Gayle	Mickey Arthur	Chris Gayle	Daniel Vettori
St Kitts and Nevis Patriots	to be determined	Eric Simons		Shahid Afridi
St Lucia Zouks	Darren Sammy	Matthew Maynard	Darren Sammy	Kevin Pietersen
Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel	Dwayne Bravo	Simon Helmot	Dwayne Bravo	[13]

Venues

Jamaica	Saint Kitts	Saint Lucia
Jamaica Tallawahs	St Kitts and Nevis Patriots	St Lucia Zouks
Sabina Park	Warner Park	Beausejour Stadium
Capacity: 20,000	Capacity: 10,000	Capacity: 15,000
Saint Kitts Saint Lucia Barbados Guyana Jamaica Trinidad
Trinidad	Barbados	Guyana
Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel	Barbados Tridents	Guyana Amazon Warriors
Queen's Park Oval	Kensington Oval	Providence Stadium
Capacity: 25,000	Capacity: 28,000	Capacity: 15,000

Sponsorships

Caribbean mobile network Digicel was named as the first global sponsor for the inaugural 2013 tournament and beyond in a multi-year deal.^[16] As previous sponsors of the West Indies cricket team and the Digicel Caribbean Cup the brand has considerable experience with sponsoring cricket and other sporting events throughout the Caribbean. “The CPL is a perfect fit for Digicel. We’re huge fans of West Indies cricket and this is a great opportunity for us to invest not only in what will be an amazing event, but also in the young cricketers who will benefit from around the region,” stated Digicel Group Marketing Operations Director Kieran Foley.^[17]

Following the acquisition of the Guyana Amazon Warriors franchise owner, Dr. Ranjisingh ’Bobby’ Ramroop’s New GPC Inc, specifically its Limacol brand, has assumed the title sponsorship of the CPL.^[2]

In June 2013 Courts plc announced their sponsorship of the Caribbean Premier League “CPL’s partnership with Courts is a very strategic and beneficial one to both parties, and we are thrilled about the possibilities that exist for us from a marketing perspective,” said CPL CEO Damien O’ Donohoe. “Combining our advertising and marketing programmes with that of Courts will heighten the awareness of CPL across the region, and increase fan support, which will put people in the stands at matches and customers in the aisles of Courts.”^[18]

El Dorado Rum has been named as an official partner of the inaugural tournament. El Dorado will not only be the rum of choice for this landmark event, but will also sponsor the tournament’s Catch of the Match award. This award will go to one player in each of the 24 matches who makes a thrilling catch in the game, demonstrating the spirit of the tournament and the El Dorado brand.^[19]

Tournament results

In 2013, at CPL some of the most respected and talented cricketers in the world aligned with the league including West Indies star players Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Darren Sammy and Sunil Narine.

Joining them at CPL 2013 were many more high profile international players including Ricky Pointing.

There are also two Hollywood stars as shareholders in CPL franchises

– Mark Wahlberg – Barbados Tridents (reigning champions)

– Gerard Butler – Jamaica Tallawahs

The inaugural CPLT20 tournament in Summer 2013 was perceived as a resounding success with top West Indies and International players playing to capacity crowds fuelled by a natural party atmosphere and entertainment from top acts in the Caribbean.

Over 240,000 spectators attended games in the 6 host countries and there was a global TV audience of 36 million homes.

An independent study showed an economic impact of $106 million for the Caribbean region as a result of the CPL Tournament.

Tournament	Final				Matches
	Venue	Winners	Result	Runner-ups
2013 Details	Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad	Jamaica Tallawahs 129 for 3 (17.3 overs)	Tallawahs won by 7 wickets Scorecard	Guyana Amazon Warriors 128 for 5 (20 overs)	24
2014 Details	Warner Park, Basseterre, St Kitts	Barbados Tridents 152 for 6 (20 overs)	Tridents won by 8 runs (D/L)	Guyana Amazon Warriors 107 for 4 (15.5 overs)	30
2015 Details					33

References

External links

• Official website

Caribbean Premier League Seasons 2013 2014 2015 Squads 2013 2014 2015 Teams Antigua Hawksbills (dormant) Barbados Tridents Guyana Amazon Warriors Jamaica Tallawahs St Kitts and Nevis Patriots St Lucia Zouks Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel Related topics Champions League Twenty20 Caribbean Twenty20