The 2020 Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) Twen­ty20 (T20) Tour­na­ment is like­ly to be played in T&T sole­ly and is card­ed to be­gin in Au­gust as was orig­i­nal­ly stat­ed.

Guardian Me­dia Sports has been re­li­ably in­formed that the CPL will present a pro­pos­al to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his cab­i­net for T&T’s con­sid­er­a­tion as host for the eighth edi­tion.

The CPL is propos­ing to play four match­es a day in T&T, two at the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain and two at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do. The fi­nal of the tour­na­ment was al­ways card­ed for T&T, as has been the case for the last two edi­tions.

The CPL or­gan­is­ers are hop­ing to get the tour­na­ment start­ed on Au­gust 19 with the fi­nal on Sep­tem­ber 26. Among the pro­pos­als is to have the six teams and sup­port staff all housed at the Hilton Trinidad for the pe­ri­od of the tour­na­ment. There are ex­pect­ed to be 34 match­es played.

With the Caribbean not bad­ly af­fect­ed by the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic, the tour­na­ment may well con­tain on­ly re­gion­al play­ers and no in­ter­na­tion­als, ac­cord­ing to a well-placed source.

Orig­i­nal­ly CPL hint­ed that they may have played the tour­na­ment in two or three coun­tries. There has been a change of heart and T&T has now been giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take the en­tire tour­na­ment.

Dr Row­ley and the cab­i­net will have to de­cide whether it is safe to open the bor­ders in time for the tour­na­ment and how will they treat with play­ers com­ing from across the re­gion in­to this coun­try? The open­ing of the bor­ders was list­ed as last on the agen­da by the gov­ern­ment.

The gov­ern­ment will al­so have to weigh the fact that stag­ing the en­tire CPL in T&T will be an eco­nom­ic boost to the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly in this try­ing fi­nan­cial times.

A source close to the sit­u­a­tion told Guardian Me­dia Sports: "CPL is propos­ing to play the en­tire tour­na­ment in Trinidad and the Prime Min­is­ter will get the pro­pos­al for con­sid­er­a­tion. Even if the tour­na­ment can't get off on Au­gust the 19, they are fine with get­ting it on the way the fol­low­ing week. There are some se­ri­ous mat­ters to con­sid­er but Trinidad has dealt with the virus sit­u­a­tion bril­liant­ly and has the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of stag­ing the en­tire tour­na­ment."

In ad­di­tion to be­ing an eco­nom­ic shot in the arm for T&T, the own­ers of the tour­na­ment al­so stand to get fi­nan­cial ease up by host­ing the tour­na­ment in just one coun­try. The lo­gis­tics of host­ing the tour­na­ment among six Caribbean coun­tries have been test­ing since the in­cep­tion of the tour­na­ment in 2013.

CPL is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce the date for the draft once they get the go-ahead that the tour­na­ment is tak­ing place. So far all six fran­chise teams have an­nounced their Caribbean re­ten­tions.

CARIBBEAN PLAY­ERS RE­TAINED FOR CPL 2020

TKR: Dwayne Bra­vo, Kieron Pol­lard, Sunil Nar­ine, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Lendl Sim­mons, Khary Pierre, Jay­den Seales, Amir Jan­goo, Tion Web­ster, Akeal Ho­sein.

Tallawahs: An­dre Rus­sell, Rov­man Pow­ell, Os­hane Thomas, Chad­wick Wal­ton.

Zouks: Chris Gayle, Daren Sam­my, An­dre Fletch­er, Kesrick Williams, Obed Mc­Coy, Rah­keem Corn­wall, Ki­mani Melius, Kavem Hodge.

Ama­zon War­riors: Nicholas Pooran, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Bran­don King, Keemo Paul, Sher­fane Ruther­ford, Ro­mario Shep­herd, Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj, Kevin Sin­clair, Odean Smith, An­tho­ny Bram­ble.

Pa­tri­ots: Evin Lewis, Fabi­an Allen, Shel­don Cot­trell, De­nesh Ramdin, Rayad Em­rit, Alzarri Joseph, Do­minic Drakes.

Tri­dents: Ja­son Hold­er, John­son Charles, Shai Hope, Hay­den Walsh Jr, Ash­ley Nurse, Jonathan Carter, Ray­mon Reifer, Ny­eem Young, Justin Greaves.