The Antigua Hawksbills are no more. T&T Guardian understands that the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) has found a new franchise owner and they are decided to buy out the Hawksbills and move it to St Kitts.
A Dubai-born businessman who practices in St. Kitts is the owner of the new franchise and he was given a choice of four franchises to choose one. The franchises on the auction block were T&T Red Steel, defending champions Barbados Tridents, the St. Lucia Zouks and the Antigua Hawksbills.
It is understood that because the businessman functions in the Leewards he thought that the right fit for him would be the Antigua Hawkbills. A name for the new franchise is yet to be sorted and this is expected to be made public soon.
T&T Red Steel, Barbados Tridents and St. Lucia Zouks remains up for grabs to potential buyers and officials are aggressively seeking owners for these three franchise as they look to turn over a profit in year three of the tournament. The Jamaica Tallawahs are owned by a US-based Indian businessman, while the Guyana amazon Warriors is owned by Dr. Bobby Ramroop, who also has a wider vested interest in the tournament, as one of the title sponsors.
Meanwhile, as was reported in the T&T Guardian weeks ago, it was confirmed that the Trinidad will host both semi-finals and finals of the 2015 edition. The T&T Government has forked out close to TT$4.5M to have the finals weekend staged in T&T.
Officials of the CPL had already mapped out the fixtures but recently made some changes which will all be released this coming week. The tournament runs from June 20 to July 26 and the new fixtures will see the T&T Red Steel playing all their home games just before the semi-finals get off in T&T. It now makes it a great treat for local cricket fans because they would have at least a week and a half of cricket to see at the Queen's Park Oval.
The 2015 season has already started to attract a number of international stars with the latest joining the ranks being the explosive Pakistani all rounder Shahid Afridi.
With five moths to go before the tournament starts, interest from players are coming in and officials will soon set a date for the auction.