CPL 2024: Jamaica Tallawahs Dissolved, Antigua-Based Franchise To Replace Them
The 2022 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) champions, Jamaica Tallawahs have been dissolved ahead of the upcoming season. The owners of the franchise have sold it back to the CPL and now it will be replaced by an Antigua-based franchise in 2024.
Jamaica Tallawahs was owned by a Guyanese businessman based in Florida, Kris Persaud. “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 ESPNcricinfo.
The CPL will add an Antigua-based franchise in 2024, which is to be named in the future. The island hosted a franchise named Antigua Hawksbills during the first two seasons of the CPL. However, they could only manage three wins in two seasons and were eventually replaced by St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in 2015.
The sports minister of the Antigua and Barbuda senate, Daryll Matthew 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 per reports. Meanwhile, the CPL intends to bring back a Jamaica-based franchise in the coming years.
“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.”
Jamaica Has Not Hosted CPL Matches Since 2019, Rovman Powell Express Disappointment
West Indies T20 skipper Rovman Powell, who led the Jamaica Tallawahs to their second CPL title in 2022, was disappointed to have his home nation, lose the 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.”
The main stadium in Jamaica’s capital city of Kingston, Sabina Park, will not host any game in the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2024. The venue last hosted an international game in 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.”
Apart from international cricket, the island has not hosted a CPL game since 2019. CPL’s chief executive Pete Russell said that he always finds the government’s reluctance to engage with cricket ‘baffling’. He said, “It’s always disappointed me that we’ve never been able to break through in terms of with our discussion”.
The CPL 2024 season will start in mid-August and will run into September as six teams will compete against each other in a fierce league competition across different islands. The 2023 season saw Guyana Amazon Warrior winning the league for the first time in CPL history. They defeated Trinbago Knight Riders in the finals by eight wickets to clinch their first CPL title.
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Caribbean Premier League (CPL) CPL 2024 Jamaica Tallawahs (JT)
