T&T to host 2018 CPL finals

(Trinidad Guardian) T&T will be missing out on the Women’s World T20 later year, but fans can take heart with the news that this country will be hosting the finals of the 2018 Digicel Caribbean Premier League (CPL).

Guardian Media Sports was reliably informed that there will be no bidding process for the championship weekend, as this country has already locked that in since last year. T&T hosted a successful CPL T20 2017 finals at the Lara Stadium in Tarouba and during the negotiations one of the conditions was that they got the rights to host the finals this year as well.

It is understood that due to the scarcity of Forex, the government will be paying the fees in T&T dollars.

The government GML was told will be making every effort to keep the money circulating right here during the course of hosting the event, as it will be paying the bills for food, hotel, transport and other incidentals. It is understood that hosting the finals weekend will cost this country a total of US$850,000, (an estimated TT$5,763,000) which was the sum paid to owners of the CPL, Digicel last year.

The preliminary round matches for defending champions Trinbago Knight Riders has nothing to do with the CPL owners or the government of T&T. This is all in the hands of the Red Chillies Entertainment group which owns the franchise.

The team owners will have to meet with Udecott officials and Queen’s Park to negotiate prices for use of the facilities for the team to play its home matches here. There will be a total of five home games for the TKR and it is expected that these will be shared between Queen’s Park Oval and the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba. Guardian Media Sports understands that TKR will not be getting the Brian Lara Academy free. TKR will have to rent it as well, so it will be down negotiations as to which venue will hosts the CPL preliminary round matches.

Negotiations are expected to begin soon between the officials of both venues and TKR, as the CPL takes place in October, with the finals at the end of the first week of September.

The normal cost of renting the venues is in the range of US$40,000 (an estimated TT$272,000) per match and now with two available, it puts TKR in a better position to negotiate.

TKR is the defending champions after it defeated the St. Kitts/Nevis Patriots in the finals of the tournament last year at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy.