Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) is delighted to announce a full complement of sponsors for the 2020 event. Joining Title Sponsor Hero, and Official Partners Digicel, El Dorado Rum, Republic Bank and Dream11 are new major partners in Fun88 and Googly Esports.
The Hero CPL will be the first franchise T20 tournament to return since the lockdowns as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and will take place behind closed doors in two stadiums in Trinidad & Tobago. All members of the CPL tournament bubble are now in the country and have tested negative for COVID-19.
The interest in the tournament this year is expected to pass the record numbers that were achieved in 2019 and the level of support from leading brands is another example of both this and the status that CPL has reached in the global cricketing calendar.
Seven years ago I was watching this T20 series involving the hosts West Indies women, England women and New Zealand women in Barbados.
The West Indies won the triangular tournament in which Deandra Dottin was named MVP. Stafanie Taylor was named player of the final as West Indies defeated England by a resounding eight wickets.
However, during that tournament, a 17-year-old girl impressed me, and I just knew she was going to be a superstar.
Against England, Shaquana Quintyne almost single-handedly won a match for the West Indies that we had absolutely no business winning. England were 69 without loss, chasing 141 to win with openers Charlotte Edwards, England’s skipper and the number two batter in the world at that time, and Lauren Winfield going great guns.
Shaquana, however, with her leg-spin, picked up both openers and also added the world’s best batter at the time Sarah Taylor as another scalp.
The much-vaunted England batting wilted under the pressure, and the girl from Barbados had stolen my heart and garnered admirers all over the world as she picked up a career best 5-16 off 4 overs. I still remember her beaming child-like toothy smile during that game.
The following March, she was ranked the second-best bowler in all of T20 cricket.
No one can question Andy Roberts’ passion for West Indies cricket. After an outstanding career for the West Indies where he took 202 wickets as part of a battery of fast bowlers, who terrorised teams for more than a decade, the no-nonsense Antiguan has for the last two decades has had to watch with despair and disdain while batting line ups have taken our bowling attacks apart almost at will.
I would imagine it would be even more frustrating for him to watch as West Indies’ batsmen, more often than not, seem incapable of batting for time in a Test match.
This was evident in the last two Test matches the West Indies lost to England at Old Trafford last month.
Therefore, it was no surprise to hear Roberts speak passionately about the team’s failures during an interview with Andrew Mason last week. Responding to comments regarding the lack of technological infrastructure that puts the West Indies at a disadvantage when compared to England, Roberts was quick to rubbish those claims, instead choosing to throw the blame squarely at the feet of the players.
“Infrastructure will not make you a better player. You have to make yourself a better player and I don’t think the commitment is there from a lot of West Indies players,” he said.
EVEN though he did not feature in any of the three Tests, Jamaican Marquino Mindley says he gained precious experience during the West Indies cricket team's recent tour of England.
“It was my first senior tour and it gave me a look into what it takes at the highest level,” the 25-year-old swing bowler told the Jamaica Observer during an interview on Tuesday.
“You're there training and you see how the players prepare for a Test match and see how the meetings are. It's different from first-class [cricket] because from ball one it's [about giving] a 100 percent,” he explained.
“The experience was fantastic; I loved it, I enjoyed it and I'm grateful, and I wish another tour might come up soon that I'm a part of,” added Mindley, who was among 10 reserves in a wider squad of 25 players for the series which the hosts lost 1-2 last month.
The St Elizabeth native made the cut on the weight of his performances in regional first-class cricket since debuting with a five-wicket, first-innings haul for Jamaica in 2014.
The Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) has teamed up with WSC Sports, the leader in AI-sports video technology, to grow its reach and engage with more cricket fans around the world. The collaboration with WSC will coincide with the first live Twenty20 tournament since the global sports hiatus.
CPL will utilize WSC Sports’ platform to significantly scale up real-time video highlights for this year’s tournament which will run from August 18 to September 10. The partnership will provide local audiences with customized player highlights for overseas stars such as Rashid Khan, Imran Tahir and Chris Lynn. CPL will also live stream every match to selected markets on their social media platforms with easylive.io broadcast technology.
