Nicholas Pooran has been named as the new cap­tain of Guyana Ama­zon War­riors ahead of the CPL 2021 sea­son. The dash­ing 'keep­er-bats­man will take over the reins from Chris Green, who has been re­leased by the fran­chise. Along with Pooran, the War­riors have re­tained a to­tal of 11 play­ers from last year's squad in­clud­ing the likes of Shim­ron Het­my­er, Bran­don King, Im­ran Tahir and Naveen Ul Haq. The big miss­ing name is Mu­jeeb ur Rah­man - the lead­ing wick­et-tak­er in 2020 with 16 wick­ets has been ig­nored.

Mean­while, An­dre Rus­sell, who had a bit­ter­sweet re­la­tion­ship with the Tallawahs last year where he even in­di­cat­ed about leav­ing the team at the end of the tour­na­ment, will sur­pris­ing­ly stay with Ja­maica along with fel­low lo­cal stars - Car­los Brath­waite, Rov­man Pow­ell, Chad­wick Wal­ton, Fi­del Ed­wards and promis­ing young­ster in Ryan Per­saud be­ing the sev­enth play­er to be re­tained by the fran­chise.

For­mer West In­dies Twen­ty20 cap­tain Brath­waite, 32, who has lost his place in the in­ter­na­tion­al side and has not fea­tured in near­ly two years, strug­gled in last year’s CPL with 60 runs from nine in­nings while tak­ing ten wick­ets with his medi­um pace.

How­ev­er, Brath­waite flour­ished in the last Aus­tralian Big Bash, snar­ing 16 wick­ets from as many match­es, and re­mains a po­tent play­er in the short­est for­mat.

The Bar­ba­di­an will be joined by West In­dies su­per­star Rus­sell, one of the most sought af­ter play­ers in fran­chise crick­et.

Ja­maican Rus­sell, re­cent­ly re­called to the West In­dies side fol­low­ing a pro­tract­ed lay­off, struck three half-cen­turies in the last CPL cam­paign to fin­ish with an av­er­age of 44.

Tallawahs have al­so kept faith with 39-year-old fast bowler Ed­wards, who was re­called by the West In­dies ear­li­er this year af­ter near­ly a decade out of in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et.

Ed­wards picked up nine wick­ets for Tallawahs last sea­son at an av­er­age of 25 and just over 7-½ runs per over.

How­ev­er, there have been snubs for the Ja­maican Test pair of Jer­maine Black­wood and Nkrumah Bon­ner with New Zealan­der Glenn Phillips, who was Tallawahs’ lead­ing bats­man last year with 316 runs, al­so not re­tained.

Nei­ther Afghan off-spin­ner Mu­jeeb-ur-Rah­man, who nabbed 16 wick­ets for Tallawahs last sea­son nor Nepal leg-spin­ner Sandeep Lamich­hane who snared 12 wick­ets, has been re­tained.

Rov­man Pow­ell and Chad­wick Wal­ton, both of whom en­dured dis­as­trous cam­paigns last year, along with Guyana left-arm spin­ner Veerasam­my Per­maul and ICC Amer­i­ca's play­er Ryan Per­saud, com­plete the list of re­tained play­ers.

Two-time cham­pi­ons Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents have re­tained skip­per Ja­son Hold­er de­spite en­dur­ing a tough 2020 cam­paign where they lost 7 games and failed to qual­i­fy for the semis. Apart from Hold­er, Shai Hope, Kyle May­ers, Ray­mon Reifer, Justin Greaves, Ny­eem Young, Joshua Bish­op, John­son Charles and Hay­den Walsh Jr are the oth­ers to have been giv­en the con­tract ex­ten­sion.

De­fend­ing Cham­pi­ons Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers have part­ed ways with vet­er­an Dwyane Bra­vo with the all-rounder be­ing trad­ed to St. Kitts and Nevis Pa­tri­ots. They've got back De­nesh Ramdin in re­turn and over­all have man­aged to re­tain the ma­jor­i­ty of the team which won them the tro­phy last year. Kieron Pol­lard will re­main cap­tain while the lead­ing run-scor­er of the pre­vi­ous sea­son, Lendl Sim­mons, who amassed 356 runs in 11 games last sea­son, will con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent the Knight Rid­ers, in ad­di­tion to oth­er big names like Col­in Munro, Sunil Nar­ine, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Sikan­dar Raza and Khary Pierre.

Play­ers Re­tained by CPL Fran­chis­es:

St Lu­cia Zouks- An­dre Fletch­er, Kesrick Williams, Rah­keem Corn­wall, Ros­ton Chase, Obed Mc­coy, Mark Deyal and Javelle Glenn.

St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots -Dwyane Bra­vo (from TKR), Evin Lewis, Fabi­an Allen, Sher­fane Ruther­ford (from GAW), Shel­don Cotrell, Rayad Em­rit, Jon Russ Jagge­sar, Do­minic Drakes, Joshua Da Sil­va.

Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents- Ja­son Hold­er, John­son Charles, Shai Hope, Kyle May­ers, Hay­den Walsh JR, Ray­mon Reifer, Justin Greaves, Ny­eem Young, Joshua Bish­op.

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors -Nicholas Pooran, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Im­ran Tahir, Bren­don King, Naveen Ul Haq, Ro­mario Shep­hard, Chan­dra­paul Hem­raj, Odean Smith, An­tho­ny Bram­ble, Kevin Sin­clair, Ash­mead Nedd.

Ja­maica Tallawahs- An­dre Rus­sell, Car­los Brath­waite, Rov­man Pow­ell, Fi­del Ed­wards, Veerasam­my Per­maul, Ryan Per­saud.

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers - Kieron Pol­lard, Sunil Nar­ine, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Col­in Munro, Lendl Sim­mons, Sikan­dar Raza, Khary Pierre, An­der­son Phillip, Di­nesh Ramdin (From St Kitts), Tion Web­ster, Akeal Ho­sein, Jay­den Seales, Ali Khan.