Caribbean Premier League

The **Caribbean Premier League** (abbreviated to CPL or also known as Republic Bank CPL for sponsorship reasons) is a men's Twenty20 cricket league annually held in various countries in the Caribbean and formerly in Florida, contested by six island-based franchise teams. Cricket West Indies founded the league in 2012. The competition is usually held between July and September each year. The current champions are the Guyana Amazon Warriors after defeating the Barbados Royals in the final at Providence Stadium.

## History

Twenty20 domestic cricket first appeared in an organised manner in the West Indies in 2006 with the privately organised Stanford 20/20. The second and last edition of the Stanford competition was officially made part of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) calendar in 2008, after which the tournament ended when its sponsor Allen Stanford was charged with fraud and arrested in June 2009. The next organised Twenty20 competition came about with the creation of the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament by the WICB. The Caribbean Twenty20 was created to fill the gap left by the end of the Stanford 20/20 and to coincide with the 2010 Champions League Twenty20 tournament, which started less than two months after. The top domestic team from the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament qualified for the Champions League as the sole representative of the West Indies.

The WICB first announced the plans for the Caribbean Premier League in September 2012 when it was revealed that the board was "in the advanced stages of discussions to have a commercial Twenty20 league in the region" with an unnamed investor and hoped to conclude a deal before 30 September. On 14 September, the board met to make decisions on the structure and organisation of the Caribbean Twenty20 CPL Schedule in January; to discuss the governance structure of the board and also discuss the planned commercial Twenty20 league and to finalise its structure. The Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) were also to be brought in to discuss issues pertaining to players in relation to the planned T20 league. On 13 December 2012, the WICB announced that they had finalised an agreement with Ajmal Khan founder of Verus International, a Barbados-based merchant bank, for the funding of the new franchise-based Twenty20 league to be launched in 2013. It was then expected that the new Caribbean Premier League was likely to comprise six Caribbean city-based franchises as opposed to the current territorial set-up with the majority of the players are to come from the West Indies. As part of the agreement, the WICB will receive additional funding from Verus International for additional retainer contracts for players in addition to the 20 annual retainer contracts the board currently funds.

Dates for the tournament were confirmed for the 2013 Caribbean Premier League as 29 July to 26 August. The 2014 and 2015 tournaments took place between 5 July to 10 August and 21 June to 26 July respectively and the 2016 tournament took place between 29 June to 7 August.

## Format

### Caribbean Premier League

As of 2023, the CPL T20 tournament is played between six teams and is divided into a group stage and a knockout stage. In the group stage, the teams each play ten matches overall, in which all teams except the Jamaica Tallawahs, play at home. The 2023 Caribbean Premier League introduced phases which differ when the home country switches. In each phase, six matches are played; the home team plays four times and two matches are between neutral franchises. The playoffs would then occur at the Providence Stadium.

### The 6ixty

*Main Article: The 6ixty*

The 6ixty is a T10 league organized by Cricket West Indies and the Caribbean Premier League that is scheduled to be played four times a year, starting with a five-day men's and women's tournament in August 2022. A number of significant changes are made to the usual rules of T10 cricket:

* Teams are all out (i.e. they can't bat anymore) upon losing 6 wickets, rather than 10.
* The first 5 overs of each innings will all be bowled from one end of the pitch, with the other 5 overs bowled from the other end.
* Fielding teams must bowl the 10 overs of an innings within 45 minutes, or they lose a fielder during the final over.
* The batting team can 'unlock' a third powerplay over by hitting two sixes in the initial two powerplay overs.

## Teams

The tournament includes six playing franchises and one defunt franchise. These franchises draft 15 players which include a maximum of five international players and four players under the age of 23.

## Season and Results

Out of the six teams that have played in the Caribbean Premier League since its inception, one team has won the competition four times, two teams have won the competition twice and one team have won the competition once. Trinbago Knight Riders are the most successful team in the history of Caribbean Premier League with four titles. The Barbados Tridents have won two titles, where the Jamaica Tallawahs also have won three titles. The Saint Kitts and Nevis Patriots and Guyana Amazon Warriors also won one title. The current champions are the Guyana Amazon Warriors who defeated the Trinbago Knight Riders by nine wickets in 2023 to win their first CPL title.

## See Also

* Women's Caribbean Premier League
* The 6ixty