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The Caribbean Premier League winners in 2022, Jamaica
Tallawahs, will not compete in the league in 2024; instead, a new Antigua and
Barbuda-based team will take their place.
Kris Persaud, a Guyanese businessman based in Florida,
owned the Tallawahs franchise but has sold it back to the CPL. “The owners
were left with no option but to sell the Tallawahs back to CPL as they could
not find a way to operate the team sustainably,” a CPL spokesperson told
In 2024, they will be replaced by an as-yet-unnamed
franchise located in Antigua. In the first two CPL seasons, the island was home
to the Antigua Hawksbills team; however, they were only able to win three games
before being replaced in 2015 by the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
In the upcoming years, the CPL plans to relaunch a
franchise based in Jamaica.
Daryll Matthew, the minister of sports in the Antigua
and Barbuda Senate, revealed plans to host a franchise in 2024 earlier this
week. “We can expect very easily and conservatively to generate
approximately US$6 million per year by simply having a CPL franchise based in
Antigua and Barbuda,” Matthew said, as reported by the Antigua Observer.
“The CPL remains committed to having a team based
in Jamaica, but this will be in 2025 at the earliest,” a spokesperson
said. “In 2024, there will be six teams taking part in the CPL with
franchises based in Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, St Kitts &
Nevis, Saint Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago.”
West Indies T20 captain Rovman Powell, who led
Tallawahs to their second CPL title in 2022, said that it was
“disappointing” for his home island to leave their franchise.
“Jamaica is the biggest island in the Caribbean, a proud nation, a proud
cricketing nation,” he said. “For those things to be happening is a
little bit disappointing.”
Sabina Park, the main stadium in Jamaica’s capital
city Kingston, will not host any games in next year’s T20 World Cup and last
staged international cricket in August 2022. “Obviously I’m a Jamaican and
I want to play in front of my home crowd, but for the last few years, I
haven’t,” Powell said. “The West Indies Cricket Board and the
Jamaican government really have to sit down and have a conversation about
that.”