BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, June 05.2018 – ORGANIZERS of the ‘Biggest party in sport’ the Caribbean Premier League has confirmed the dates for matches and the St. Kitts and Nevis’ Warner Park is slated to play host to five matches in this year’s event.
According to a statement from the League, which is based in St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis will host its franchise – the St. Kitts-Nevis Patriots – home matches between August and September, when all teams will play one game at Warner Park.
According to the fixture, the Patriots will open against the Guyana Amazon Warriors on August 28, they will then return to the pitch on August 30, to square off against the St. Lucia Stars.
Defending champions, the Trinbago Knight Riders will stop over for their encounter on September 1, while the Jamaica Tallawahs will lock horns the following day, before the Patriots close out their home leg two days later against the Barbados Patriots.
At the Prime Minister’s April press conference, Minister of Sports, Hon. Shawn Richards had told reporters that preparations were moving apace when it comes to the hosting of CPL matches.
“What we now need to do is ensure that relative to the stadium it is in a state of readiness, the necessary contracts that we would have to sign with CPL for rental of the stadium, getting the necessary personnel in place to ensure that the games are administered as efficiently as possible, all of those things will be done in time for the games which are slated for August of this year.”
According to CPL, the 34-match season will begin on 8 August with the final on 16 September 2018. For the third successive year, the tournament will return to the USA, with three matches taking place at the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill Florida.
The first match will see last year’s winners, Trinbago Knight Riders taking on St Lucia Stars, while the Guyana Amazon Warriors will get underway against St Kitts & Nevis Patriots.
Like last year, this year’s semi-finals and final will be in Trinidad with the venue for the first two knockout matches yet to be confirmed.
Damien O’Donohoe, the Hero CPL’s CEO, is excited about the upcoming season, saying that, “We are delighted with how Hero CPL continues to grow. Last season we saw almost 200 million viewers watch the tournament and Hero CPL also made a huge impact on the economies of the countries we visited. We are certain that this year we will see those numbers grow once again.”
Speaking on the announcement of the tournament fixtures CPL’s COO, Pete Russell said: “It is very pleasing to get the fixture list agreed for this year. Moving the tournament between seven nation states always represents a huge logistical challenge and I would like to thank our operations team for pulling it all together for another year.”
