The CPL's effect on West Indianness has been deeper than anyone imagined

My father called me up late one Saturday morning to ask if I was watching the IPL match that was coming live from India. It was not on my radar. I was running errands, and I had taken to catching the repeats at night on account of my day job. He was disappointed because the game had been so exciting, he just wanted to share his experience with someone.

Daddy has been tuning in to T20 cricket since the Caribbean Premier League started three years ago. After he had turned away in disgust from West Indies Test cricket, he'd never really paid attention to the shorter forms of the game, not even in his retirement; but then he was never as much a cricket fan as my brothers and I were.

When the CPL came along in 2013 it drew me in, and as my surviving brother was not within reach, when a match excited me, I would phone my father just to share the experience. He would not have been watching, so I would tell him what station he could find it on, and eventually it collared him too. He now loves T20 cricket - more than Tests - and when the West Indies teams won the 2016 World T20 in April, he was the first person I called. To be honest, I never thought I would describe my father as a cricket fan. My mother for sure, but he had always seemed a take-it-or leave-it kind of spectator. T20 cricket changed that.

read more at ESPNcricinfo Cricket Monthly

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Not bad , acutally quite good . Uses history and the modern era to show what T20 has done in the West Indies ,

In reply to Cornfused

In my view, quite brilliant. The article shows the CPL is creating excitement and stirring passion among cricket fans through out the Caribbean region.

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

Another fantastic piece for Vanesia.

She's put into words what the purists don't want to acknowledge.

T20 cricket is all that matters in this region now.

Whether we want to admit it or not. All other formats are dead

In reply to DIEHARD

See your point but there may be another way of looking at it. The CPL could well be the catalyst that restores interest in all other formats of West Indies cricket.

Seems to be a good read, but too long for Generation Z, I stopped reading midway.

In reply to XDFIX

It is sort of long...but it is a Magazine article. The sort of thing I used to read in Sports Illustrated about Ali.

I think it is a very good analysis of our cricket nowadays.

Maybe you should do what I do. Read a bit, put it down, then go back and continue reading when I have more time.

And of course, cc.com has a bias towards female cricket writers, and players.