CPL CAN IMPROVE SKILLS OF ENGLISH PLAYERS
Iam now back in the UK after a wonderful couple of months away for the Caribbean Premier League, and while the tournament ultimately ended in disappointment as our Jamaica Tallawahs were knocked out in the eliminator, it was a brilliant competition to be involved with again.
The CPL seems to be growing year on year, attracting more and more star names, and it’s massive in the West Indies. This year saw England ODI captain Eoin Morgan play for Barbados Tridents and maybe now we’ll see more English players travel over in the future.
It’s a difficult one because it’s slap bang in the middle of the English summer but the limited-overs players could play. It would help the lads in terms of learning new skills and be great for the tournament.
They might not all be familiar names but the domestic West Indians are good players and they will test you out.You’re playing in front of packed houses with the music playing, it really is a joy to be a part of.
With the Windies Test team doing a lot better than expected in the series against England too, the appetite is there to keep going and getting better and better. The guys want to represent their country and I think the Windies are on the up. It’s inspiring and the CPL is a great platform to show skills that can springboard them to success.
Our new owners are worth about a billion dollars, and they treated us like royalty, so it was an ideal situation to play cricket. We couldn’t have asked for any more in terms of facilities, and the guys in charge are keen to keep improving the squad and already planning for next season.
As I say, we felt gutted to come so close in our attempt to make it back-toback successes, having lifted the trophy in 2016, but we were dealt a tough hand. Mickey Arthur, the Pakistan coach, wanted to do some fitness tests on his players and he called back Imad Wasim, who is the world’s top T20 bowler.
We obviously missed his wickets and economy rate and Shakib-al-Hasan went back to Bangladesh for their series against Australia. That’s eight overs we missed of wicket-taking bowlers.
You’re playing in front of packed houses with music playing, it really is a joy to be a part of
You always need a bit of luck to do well in any tournament, and this year we just didn’t get that.
We got hurt by a clever bit of cricket from Guyana, changing a wet ball to a dry one and allowing their leg spinner, Rashid Khan, to take a hat-trick.
Every one was a googly and, even though Kumar Sangakkara was down the other end telling the batsmen he will bowl a googly, they all missed it. It’s a good learning curve though for all players and they will come back from this stronger.
It was nice to see the development of the younger players. Andre McCarthy played really positively all through the tournament and really kicked on.