West In­dies bats­man Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul has with­drawn from the in­au­gur­al edi­tion of the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) due to con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions with Eng­lish coun­ty Der­byshire. He will be re­placed in the St Lu­cia fran­chise by Aus­tralia bats­man Luke Pomers­bach.Chan­der­paul signed a con­tract with CPL of­fer­ing him­self for se­lec­tion but lat­er re­alised that his com­mit­ment to Der­byshire al­lowed a re­lease on­ly if it per­tained to play­ing for West In­dies."I am ex­treme­ly sor­ry that I will not be able to par­tic­i­pate in the CPL be­cause of con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions," Chan­der­paul said. "I would def­i­nite­ly like to make my­self avail­able for the next edi­tion, and will have my con­tracts car­ry a clause that will per­mit me to play in fu­ture edi­tions of T20 tour­na­ments."His with­draw­al opened doors for Pomers­bach, who was in the group of Elite Pool A play­ers along­side Chan­der­paul, and the on­ly bats­man re­main­ing in that pool.

"It will be great to be a part of this first CPL and I am look­ing for­ward to some tough com­pet­i­tive crick­et with some of the great­est T20 crick­eters in the world," Pomers­bach said.Or­gan­is­ers say Pomers­bach's se­lec­tion is in line with the rules of the draft and does not put the St Lu­cia team at any dis­ad­van­tage.Pomers­bach has scored 1078 runs in 48 Twen­ty20 match­es at a strike rate of 130.98, in­clud­ing fours fifties and a hun­dred. The oth­er T20 fran­chis­es he has rep­re­sent­ed are Bris­bane Heat, Kings XI Pun­jab and Roy­al Chal­lengers Ban­ga­lore.The St Lu­cia fran­chise, St Lu­cia Zouks, in­cludes in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers Dar­ren Sam­my, Her­schelle Gibbs, Al­bie Morkel, Tino Best, Tamim Iqbal among oth­ers. The coach of the fran­chise is for­mer West In­dies bowler Andy Roberts.

"It is un­for­tu­nate that Chan­der­paul is un­able to be a part of the St Lu­cia Zouks," com­ment­ed St Lu­cia's Head Coach Andy Roberts."His ex­pe­ri­ence would have added some sta­bil­i­ty to the team, and of course he is loved and re­spect­ed by fans around the world. We wish him all the best this sea­son with Der­byshire and hope to see him in the draft again next year."We are pleased with Pomers­bach as a re­place­ment op­tion. He is a com­pe­tent mid­dle or­der bats­man, and we be­lieve that he will serve our team well."The CPL be­gins on Tues­day, 30 Ju­ly in Bar­ba­dos and con­cludes on Sat­ur­day, 24 Au­gust in Trinidad. All match­es will take place at 8 pm and all dou­ble head­ers will be­gin at 3 pm and 8 pm with the ex­cep­tion of Ja­maica whose match­es will take place at 10 am and 2 pm.