The recently concluded edition of the tournament, which was won by the Trinbago Knight Riders, did feature some of the region’s emerging talent. In fact, a list of 20 young players was, as is required, named ahead of the tournament and several players featured prominently throughout the competition.
The list included Alick Athanaze, Joshua Bishop, Leniko Boucher, Keacy Carty Roland Cato, Joshua da Silva, Dominic Drakes, Amir Jangoo, Nicholas Kirton, Mikyle Louis, Kirk McKenzie, Kimani Melius, Ashmead Nedd, Jeavor Royal, Jayden Seales, Keagan Simmons, Kevin Sinclair, Shamar Springer, Bhaskar Yadram and Nyeem Young.
There are, however, a few players who remain outside this group. Leslie pointed to the example of Roshon Primus who represented Trinbago Knight Riders in the two previous seasons. Leslie believes the idea of another country-based T20 tournament could be considered.
“The CPL has a franchise model, which in my view, has not been able to expose the best T20 cricketer that ply their trade in the Caribbean,” Leslie told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“I’ll give an example of Barbados. Barbados started a T20 domestic tournament back in 2009. Every year there are some players that contribute very well. Roshon Primus, for example, does extremely well, but the opportunity for Roshon Primus to be selected, I’m not sure there is that level of transparency,” he added.
“Simply put, you can have young U-19 West Indies players given an opportunity to make the franchises because they were on a global stage. You can have the West Indies emerging players from the Super50, did very well, given an opportunity to play T20 cricket. But what happens to local Barbadian T20 players, Trinidadians, and those across the region who ply their trade and play consistently well in their domestic tournament. I believe there is very little for those persons.”
Powell will replace Fabian Allen in the Patriots squad and will be available for their match against the Guyana Amazon Warriors on Wednesday, August 19.
As a native of St Kitts & Nevis, Powell was invited to join the Patriots squad as a training player but he will now be eligible to play for the franchise.
Powell has played 40 Tests and 46 ODIs as well as one T20 International. Powell has played for the Patriots before, most recently during the 2016 Hero CPL. Powell was the leading scorer in last year’s Regional Super 50 competition, making 524 runs for the Leeward Islands.
Powell travelled into Trinidad & Tobago on August 2 and he has gone through the rigorous quarantine and testing process that Hero CPL and the Ministry of Health put in place.
This year’s CPL is taking place behind closed doors in two venues in Trinidad & Tobago with the final taking place at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy on 10 September 2020.
Seales bowled three overs and took two wickets for 21 runs to help restrict the Tallawahs to 135-8.
More impressive for the 18-year-old, was the fact that he was entrusted with opening the bowling along with Ali Khan against a powerful Tallawahs top order.
“Today, opening the bowling was not on the cards but after we saw the first couple of balls swing I thought might as well go pace out and see what we get,” said Pollard in an interview with Ian Bishop after the game.
But according to Pollard, the young talent has to be protected and he won’t be putting him in that kind of pressure situation regularly.
“We want to try to protect him as much as possible. He is young so we try not to throw him into the fire. Give him easy roles,” said Pollard.
Despite the need to protect Seales, Pollard did point out that the pacer seems to handle pressure well.
Seales first wicket was that of another youngster in Nicholas Kirton, trapping the number three batsman leg before wicket with a beautiful curling delivery.
The pacer was also given the 16th over with opener Glenn Phillips (58) trying to push the pace of a flagging innings and had him caught, trying to lift a fullish delivery over backward-square-leg, only to be snapped up by Dwayne Bravo on the boundary.
“[…] in the heat of the moment we’ve had to throw him into the fire and the couple of times he has come on, he has shown that he has that mental capacity you know, to take that sort of pressure,” said Pollard.
But Seales night with the ball ended after his third over, even though he had been bowling well, Pollard again deciding to ease him into the thick of things.
“It is not one where we gonna consistently give him the bowling in those pressure situations. I could have easily brought him back in that last over as well but, again, you leave him with that confidence and that high,” he said.
