Caribbean Premier League - A shot in the arm for West Indies cricket?

The movie ‘Fire in Babylon’ vividly described the heritage the Caribbean possessed when it comes to cricket and the pride they take while playing the sport, because it became their identity and reason for existence. Clive Lloyd was the first ever captain to win the ICC Cricket World Cup and lead a first team of ‘world champions’.

However, come 2013 and this strong sentiment seems to have vanished! Sure they have had its moments such as the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy win in England when the ninth wicket partnership between Ian Bradshaw and Courtney Browne won a lost game against the hosts in the final. As well as the 2012 World T20 in Sri Lanka where coincidentally, the Windies led by Darren Sammy defeated the home team (once again!) courtesy a brilliant, counterattacking innings by Marlon Samuels.

But it ends there. West Indian fans enjoy their game more these days, perhaps because of their extroverted nature or their perennial inability to accept that their team is no longer the same force that it was in the 70s and 80s. Players such as Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo dancing about after even the smallest of successes looks like a reflection of this culture. Boy, are they so accustomed to enjoying but losing!

However, the Caribbean Premier League seems to have entered at the right time. Inspired by the IPL, it will not have India’s players unfortunately but some of the world’s top T20 players as well as those who have retired from the game such as Ricky Ponting, Muttiah Muralitharan and Herschelle Gibbs to mentor the Caribbean youngsters and add value to the tournament.

Limacol, a toilet sanitizer firm is the title sponsor of the tournament while the telecom firm Digicel and banking honcho, Scotiabank continue to place their faith in Windies cricket by agreeing to be official partners for the event.

One of the teams, Antigua Hawksbills has managed to rope in the Global Bank of Commerce to be their founding sponsor. They believe that Antigua has always produced quality cricketers, such as Sir Vivian Richards who is the team coach and a team having stars like Ponting and Samuels, should make it to the final at least.
West Indies gets many players in a festive mood because of the different atmosphere fans bring about in the grounds. Hopefully, with 5 other teams battling it out for the championship, this venture should be a massive success by helping Windies cricket to get back on track to some extent and not like the infamous Stanford series in the West Indies, which was promising but had to be discontinued due to his arrest after fraud allegations.
Phew, lots of expectations!