CPL plans to scale up women’s tournament

CHRIS Watson, head of marketing of the Hero Caribbean Premier League, said it’s the goal of the league to expand the women’s tournament.

The 2022 CPL, which bowls off on August 31, will feature a women’s T20 tournament for the first time in the ten-year history of the competition.

Three franchises will play for the inaugural Women’s CPL (WCPL) crown – Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR), Barbados Royals and Guyana Amazon Warriors.

Deandra Dottin will captain TKR, Hayley Matthews will lead the Royals and Stafanie Taylor will be at the helm of the Amazon Warriors.

The WCPL will be played at Warner Park in St Kitts from August 31-September 4.

“We are absolutely excited (to have the women play), we can’t wait. We are going to have games both in the 6ixty and in CPL for women so there is going to be a lot of women’s cricket going on,” Watson said.

This year, from August 24-28 in St Kitts, a T10 tournament called the 6ixty will be played prior to the CPL involving the three women’s teams and the six men’s teams.

Watson said the CPL has goals to grow the women’s game.

“This is just the first proper step for us with three teams involved, but we see this scaling up as we go in future years. We’ve done our exhibition (women’s) games in 2019 and the plan was to move forward, but obviously then the pandemic hit.”

Watson is glad the CPL can give the women’s cricketers exposure.

“We are really excited to build that momentum again, get things going, get the women back involved (and) do things in a proper way with trophies up for grabs and give them a global platform, global audience where the talents can be seen and appreciated.”

Watson said the WCPL will inspire girls to play cricket.

Discussing the 6ixty tournament, Watson said, “The 6ixty is the next logical step as we are looking to create more opportunity for male and female cricketers to showcase their talent in the region. We think it is the right time for a new format to come in and bring in new experiences both for fans watching on tv and those coming to the games.”