The Biggest Party In Sport welcomed six new players this week, with the surprise inclusion of two players from North America after they impressed in the team training camps.
USA international Steven Taylor will join the likes of Kieron Pollard, Ravi Rampaul and Dwayne Smith after he was signed by the Barbados Tridents, while Canadian Nikhil Dutta has the opportunity to learn from the best as he joins Marlon Samuals and Shahid Afridi in the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots squad.
They are part of the six new 2015 Hero Caribbean Premier League recruits, as each team welcomed one promising player each, to hone their cricket skills as well as learn how to party with the best!
"These guys have a fantastic opportunity to make a name for themselves on the big stage" - CPL director of cricket Tom Moody
Joining the Amazon Warriors is West Indies Under-19s player of the year Shimron Hetmeyer, who will get the chance to show off all his talent at the Providence Stadium alongside cricketing greats like Sunil Narine and Denesh Ramdin, while former West Indies Under-19 captain Ramaal Lewis gets to learn how to dominate the T20 leagues from the best as he joins Chris Gayle in the Jamaica Tallawahs squad.
Experienced players Darren Sammy and Kevin Pietersen will take promising player Gidron Pope under their wing as St Lucia Zouks have signed the St Vincent youngster, and Trinidad & Tobago local Mark Deyal joins the Red Steel, for whom the Bravo brothers and Jacques Kallis will be able to show him a thing or two about the art of T20 cricket.
These six lucky cricketers were selected after each team hosted a training camp containing four locals and one player from ICC Americas Associate nations.
Tom Moody, CPL Director of Cricket, said: "Competition for a place in the CPL squads has been fierce. The coaches have been very impressed with the quality of young players on show, so it was hard to narrow it down to one player per squad. These six guys have a fantastic opportunity to make a name for themselves on the big stage, and we wish them all the best for CPL 2015."
These six six players have joined the teams just as the tournament has started, with two games having already been played. The Barbados Tridents re-enacted last season’s final, defeating the Guyana Amazon Warriors by 49 runs, with the Zouks-Red Steel game on Sunday having to be abandoned due to rain after Darren Sammy’s team had posted an impressive score of 179-6.
The Biggest Party In Sport will hope to live up to its title as games run from 20th June to 26th July.
Last year’s tournament attracted a global audience in excess of 65 million and this year is set to be even higher as fans across the world continue to be drawn to the high quality action on the pitch and the unique party atmosphere off it.
