Vin­ode Mam­chan

Ex­cit­ing T&T all rounder Kevon Coop­er is look­ing for­ward to play­ing in the Bangladesh T20 do­mes­tic crick­et se­ries but more im­por­tant­ly to rub shoul­ders with one of the greats in Sri Lan­ka's Mut­ti­ah Mu­ralitha­ran. Coop­er was snapped up by the Chit­tagong Kings for a price of US$25,000. He will be joined in Chit­tagong by coun­try­men Dwayne Bra­vo and Lendl Sim­mons. Al­so Ja­maican Jerome Tay­lor, who con­tin­ues to be ig­nored by the West In­dies se­lec­tors. The Ari­ma born Coop­er said: "I am re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to meet­ing with Mut­ti­ah Mu­ralitha­ran who will al­so be play­ing for Chit­tagong. It is a re­al plea­sure to be play­ing crick­et on the for­eign cir­cuit and with such big name play­ers. I would just like to go out there and prove that I be­long on that stage. "Hav­ing peo­ple like Mu­rali, Dwayne Bra­vo, Lendl Sim­mons and Jerome Tay­lor at Chit­tagong will on­ly serve to as­sist in my de­vel­op­ment and I am so look­ing for­ward to be­ing there."

Coop­er, who has ex­pe­ri­ence of play­ing on the sub­con­ti­nent, af­ter rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the last Cham­pi­ons League in In­dia, is hop­ing to star at the tour­na­ment. "I am go­ing to for­get all the big names and just put my best foot for­ward and deal with play­ing crick­et the way I know. "I am not go­ing to be in­tim­i­dat­ed in any­way while com­ing up against the big play­ers in world crick­et. I have had a taste of play­ing amongst the best at the Cham­pi­ons League and this not go­ing to be any dif­fer­ent." Coop­er, whose broth­er Kevin Moli­no plays foot­ball for T&T said he fol­lowed in his fa­ther's foot­steps and set­tled as a crick­eter. I have two broth­ers that play foot­ball and al­though I played a lot of foot­ball, I re­al­ly liked crick­et and de­cid­ed to work hard at the game. "To­day, I have proven that I can make a ca­reer out of crick­et and I think that has made my fam­i­ly proud. I must thank the of­fi­cials at Queen's Park who re­al­ly as­sist­ed in my de­vel­op­ment and al­though I now play at T&TEC, I re­al­ly owe QPCC a lot. "I would al­so like to thank Sunil Nar­ine's dad, who used to take me to the Oval to play crick­et. This re­al­ly helped me a lot."

West In­di­an play­ers sold and BPL team:

Play­er Cost in $US BPL Team

Chris Gayle 551,000 Barisal Burn­ers

Mar­lon Samuels 360,000 Duron­to Ra­jsha­di

Kieron Pol­lard 300,000 Dha­ka Glad­i­a­tors

Dwayne Bra­vo 150,000 Chit­tagong Kings

An­dre Rus­sell 85,000 Khul­na Roy­al Ben­gals

Dar­ren Sam­my 55,000 Syl­het Roy­als

Fi­del Ed­wards 60,000 Khul­na Roy­al Ben­gals

Dwayne Smith 50,000 Khul­na Roy­al Ben­gals

Jerome Tay­lor 50,000 Chit­tagong Kings

Shiv Chan­der­paul 25,000 Khul­na Roy­al Ben­gals

Lendl Sim­mons 25,000 Chit­tagong Kings

Kevon Coop­er 25,000 Chit­tagong Kings