Durrant Pate/Contributor

Jamaica Tallawahs, the two-time Caribbean Premier League (CPL) champions, will not feature in the tournament’s 2024 season.

Confirmation has come that Kris Persaud, a Guyanese businessman based in Florida, who owns the Tallawahs franchise, has sold it back to the CPL. Jamaica Tallawahs will be replaced in next year’s competition by a new franchise based in Antigua and Barbuda.

The Jamaican government is being blamed for the decision with claims that the incumbent administration has not been cricket friendly. Sabina Park, the main stadium in Jamaica’s capital city Kingston, will not host any games in next year’s T20 World Cup.

The 2024 CPL season is expected to start in mid-August and will run into September. There will be six teams taking part in the CPL with franchises based in Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, St Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago.”

Turning in CPL franchise

The venue last staged international cricket in August last year. A CPL spokesperson told ESPNcricinfo, “the owners were left with no option but to sell the Tallawahs back to CPL as they could not find a way to operate the team sustainably.” 

CPL chief executive Pete Russell told the Jamaica Observer newspaper last year that he found the government’s reluctance to engage with cricket “baffling” saying, “it’s always disappointed me that we’ve never been able to break through in terms of with our discussions.”

The CPL intends to relaunch a Jamaica-based franchise in years to come. “The CPL remains committed to having a team based in Jamaica, but this will be in 2025 at the earliest,” a spokesperson said. 

Windies T20 captain disappointed

West Indies T20 captain Rovman Powell, who led Tallawahs to their second CPL title in 2022, declared that it was “disappointing” for his home island to leave their franchise.

“Jamaica is the biggest island in the [English-speaking] Caribbean, a proud nation, a proud cricketing nation,” Powell said, adding, “for those things to be happening is a little bit disappointing.”

“Obviously I’m a Jamaican and I want to play in front of my home crowd, but for the last few years, I haven’t,” Powell lamented arguing, “the West Indies Cricket Board and the Jamaican government really have to sit down and have a conversation about that.”

In next year’s competition, the Jamaica Tallawahs Antigua and Barbuda’s replacement does not yet have a name. The island hosted a franchise named Antigua Hawksbills in the first two CPL seasons but they won only three matches and were replaced by St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in 2015.

Antiguan Sports Minister, Senator Daryll Matthew, revealed plans to host a franchise in 2024 just last week.

He told the Antigua Observer, “we can expect very easily and conservatively to generate approximately US$6 million per year by simply having a CPL franchise based in Antigua and Barbuda.”