Last year’s los­ing fi­nal­ists Bar­ba­dos Roy­als will raise the cur­tain on this year’s Women’s Caribbean Pre­mier League when they clash with Guyana Ama­zon War­riors in front of their home crowd at Kens­ing­ton Oval.

Or­gan­is­ers an­nounced the fix­tures for the Au­gust 31 to Sep­tem­ber 10 cam­paign on Wednes­day, with Roy­als tak­ing on Ama­zon War­riors in the tour­na­ment’s open­er.

Reign­ing cham­pi­ons Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers will launch the de­fence of their ti­tle two days lat­er against Roy­als at the same venue, in a re­match of last year’s fi­nal.

The sto­ried Oval will host its fi­nal game on Sep­tem­ber 5 when TKR and Ama­zon War­riors come up against each oth­er.

The last three group games in the tour­na­ment will be played in Trinidad and To­ba­go, along with the fi­nal, even though or­gan­is­ers are yet to an­nounce the venues.

“We were de­light­ed with the re­cep­tion the first WC­PL re­ceived in 2022 and we can­not wait for the start of an ex­pand­ed tour­na­ment this year,” said CPL chief ex­ec­u­tive, Pe­te Rus­sell.

“These huge­ly tal­ent­ed play­ers de­serve the best chance to show­case their tal­ents and the WC­PL is the per­fect stage for this. Women’s crick­et is grow­ing rapid­ly, and it is pleas­ing for CPL to play a sig­nif­i­cant part in that growth.”

Last year’s WC­PL was staged en­tire­ly in St Kitts and com­prised on­ly three group games, with the top two teams meet­ing in the fi­nal.

This year, each team will fea­ture in four group games, a move cham­pi­oned by Crick­et West In­dies.

“CWI is com­mit­ted to greater in­vest­ment in the growth and de­vel­op­ment of women’s crick­et,” said pres­i­dent Dr Kishore Shal­low.

“Con­sis­tent with this is the ex­pan­sion of the WC­PL 2023 to fea­ture more match­es and play­ing across venues in the re­gion. This op­por­tu­ni­ty for our re­gion­al crick­eters is in­valu­able.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there is no doubt that the spec­ta­cle of the tour­na­ment will in­spire more young fe­male crick­eters to take up the sport. It is cer­tain­ly an ex­cit­ing time for all par­ties in­volved.”

Re­gion­al cor­po­rate gi­ants Massy Group have thrown their sup­port be­hind the tour­na­ment again as ti­tle spon­sors in a three-year deal, se­nior vice-pres­i­dent Am­bikah Mon­groo, un­der­scor­ing the strate­gic val­ue of the part­ner­ship.

“Sup­port­ing the WC­PL ex­em­pli­fies what we be­lieve to be tru­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of our Caribbean heart,” Mon­groo said.

“It’s the pas­sion for the game of crick­et, it’s the en­er­gy of our Caribbean women and the com­bi­na­tion of both to have glob­al reach through the CPL plat­forms.” (CMC)