Renowned for its passion for cricket and its penchant for revelry, there was no more appropriate location for a T20 tournament than the West Indies.
It was a combination that influenced Digicel, the Irish mobile phone company long established in the region and in its cricket, to sign its 50-year agreement with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), originally through the Barbados-based merchant bank, Verus International, for the ownership of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). Comprising six franchised teams along the lines of the high-profile Indian Premier League (IPL), the “Greatest Party in Sport” was an obvious slogan.
It has been an unqualified success on the field through its three seasons, the third of which ended at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain last weekend, with the Trinidad Red Steel defeating the 2014 champions Barbados Tridents in the final.
Two Trinidadian icons of T20 cricket were rival captains, Dwayne Bravo leading the Red Steel, Kieron Pollard the Tridents. The new champions included three South Africans and a Pakistani, the limit for overseas players for each team, along with a Bajan and six Trinidadians.
Hours before the first ball, stands were packed with an estimated 20,000 – there might have been more, there certainly weren’t less; they partied, as only Trinidadians can, as their franchise team, part owned for the first time by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders of the IPL.
The red and black Trinidad and Tobago colours were everywhere. A sea of national flags waved
