On Au­gust 4, the Re­pub­lic Bank Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) an­nounced that it would launch a Hall of Fame, which each year would recog­nise one play­er and one non-play­er whose con­tri­bu­tions have helped shape the re­gion­al T20 tour­na­ment over its 14-year lifes­pan. The ini­tia­tive is fur­ther in­tend­ed to pre­serve the lega­cy of the tour­na­ment while recog­nis­ing ex­cel­lence in per­for­mance, lead­er­ship and ser­vice.

On Au­gust 8, CPL of­fi­cials re­vealed that the in­au­gur­al in­duc­tion would in­clude vet­er­an broad­cast­er and for­mer West In­dies play­er Ian Rafael Bish­op, along­side the CPL's 'win­ningest' play­er Dwayne John Bra­vo.

Bish­op, whose ca­reer in broad­cast and com­men­tary be­gan through an un­planned op­por­tu­ni­ty in 1999, is to­day one of the game's most recog­nised voic­es (though he would has­ten to di­min­ish that com­pli­ment).

Guardian Me­dia Sport's Gyasi Mer­rique in­ter­viewed Bish­op just days af­ter he was cho­sen for the an­nounce­ment.

Gyasi Mer­rique: How do you feel about hav­ing this recog­ni­tion from the Caribbean Pre­mier League as its in­au­gur­al in­ductee along­side Dwayne Bra­vo?

Ian Bish­op: Well, I'm cog­nisant of the ho­n­our that has been be­stowed. I thank God that he's al­lowed me to find a ca­reer post play­ing that I en­joy just as much as I did be­ing on the field. So CPL has done a good thing be­cause any­thing to bring recog­ni­tion to Re­pub­lic Bank CPL, a plat­form for the young play­ers of the Caribbean, for the se­nior play­ers of the Caribbean to find oth­er em­ploy­ment and to en­ter­tain and to con­tin­ue bring­ing crowds to crick­et in the re­gion. And we sure­ly need that. But more than any­thing else, I'm re­al­ly hap­py for Dwayne Bra­vo. He's done so much for the T20 game, not just in the Caribbean, but across the world.

GM: As much as Dwayne Bra­vo's win­ning as a play­er is a com­mon trend, Ian Bish­op is al­most syn­ony­mous with the CPL's biggest mo­ments. What is your phi­los­o­phy as far as com­men­tary is con­cerned?

IB: The com­men­ta­tor is al­ways pe­riph­er­al to the play­ers. That's my phi­los­o­phy. The play­ers take cen­tre stage. Next would be the view­er­ship or the lis­ten­er­ship in the case of ra­dio, or the fan in the ground. We are on­ly sto­ry­tellers. We are, in my mind, just the ones, the ve­hi­cle that con­veys the sto­ries of the play­ers, the mes­sages of their per­for­mance to whichev­er au­di­ence is avail­able. And we have to do that as ac­cu­rate­ly as we can. I've al­ways en­joyed my op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­act with play­ers, to en­cour­age them off mic and on mic be­cause I recog­nise the big­ger pic­ture as a broad­cast­er is for the bet­ter­ment of crick­et in the re­gion. In short, that's my phi­los­o­phy, to put the play­er at cen­tre stage and tell their sto­ry.

GM: Was com­men­tary a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion for you once your play­ing ca­reer was over?

IB: No. Once I fin­ished play­ing, I had planned long be­fore that I want­ed to get as far away from the game as pos­si­ble. That's on record, pub­lic, in in­ter­views. I didn't want to have to deal with play­ers like my­self who could be moody, who could be, I sup­pose, ego­tis­ti­cal at times be­cause of the na­ture of the game as such. I on­ly fell in­to this by ac­ci­dent. As I said, it's God's will. It wasn't my de­sire, but I do en­joy it. Whether it's dress­ing to go to work or whether it's in my fam­i­ly life, I am a per­fec­tion­ist, so I keep dri­ving my­self hard­er every day, but no, I didn't think I would fall in­to it.

GM: You come from a list of great Caribbean com­men­ta­tors such as Tony Co­zi­er, Joseph "Reds" Per­reira, and Michael Hold­ing. You must be proud to con­tin­ue that sort of lega­cy.

IB: I don't put my­self in that brack­et. Michael Hold­ing was very good to me. A fa­ther fig­ure, a big broth­er sort of thing. From my play­ing days, I fol­lowed him to Der­byshire on his rec­om­men­da­tion. When I was still play­ing, and I was strug­gling with my back in­juries and my tech­nique, Mikey was there try­ing to give me in­for­ma­tion, tak­ing me to ses­sions to try to smoothen things out. I've al­ways had that re­spect. Then he opened the door for me to come in­to broad­cast­ing at Chan­nel 4 in that 1999-2000 pe­ri­od. I didn't know that un­til 15 or 20 years lat­er that he did give them a rec­om­men­da­tion that I would suit their needs for a broad­cast­er for the West In­dies Tour of Eng­land in 2000.

Mikey's been very kind, and I have no prob­lem giv­ing the praise to whom it's due. I learned a lot from him, not to men­tion Tony Co­zi­er. When I got in­to com­men­tary, Tony was al­ready who Tony was. The great­est all-round jour­nal­ist and broad­cast­er that we've ever had in ra­dio, tele­vi­sion, and writ­ing. He al­ways treat­ed me as an equal. He nev­er treat­ed me as any­thing less than an equal. I learned from them; I give them great praise, all the praise for teach­ing me, but al­so for en­cour­ag­ing me.

GM: On that note, when you look at the class com­ing up – Samuel Badree, Daren Gan­ga, Kesrick Williams of a more re­cent vin­tage, and Nikhil Ut­tam­chan­dani – are you sat­is­fied that the fu­ture of Caribbean com­men­tary is in good hands?

IB: Of course, of course. The one thing that I have learned through sport, play­ing sport, watch­ing sport, and study­ing the his­to­ry of life in gen­er­al is that life nev­er stops. Crick­et does not stop with any one play­er, and broad­cast­ing does not stop with any one broad­cast­er. We stand on the shoul­ders of the gi­ants that have gone be­fore. I think those names that you men­tioned, very in­tel­li­gent guys, very ar­tic­u­late guys, they will con­tin­ue to trans­fer what is go­ing on on the field to the au­di­ence tuned in by what­ev­er tech­nol­o­gy there is. They're open to learn­ing, and they too will have to throw the rope back over the fence to bring along the oth­ers when that time comes.

GM: As a self-pro­fessed per­fec­tion­ist, it means you prob­a­bly con­tin­ue to study the game as it changes. How do you keep up?

IB: I have a growth mind­set. Every day that I go to work, and it was the same as a play­er, I'm try­ing to find a way to be bet­ter to­day than I was yes­ter­day. Be­cause if you feel that you've con­quered it all, whether it's crick­et, whether it's sport, or whether it's life, it has a way of throw­ing you off bal­ance. So, in the need to keep rais­ing the bar, I'm con­stant­ly talk­ing to guys like Dwayne Bra­vo, to guys like Kieron Pol­lard, and a num­ber of my friends in the coach­ing realm. I lean on them heav­i­ly every time I see them, guys like Tom Moody and Justin Langer. I'm al­ways try­ing to pick up in­for­ma­tion from them as to where the game is go­ing. How is bowl­ing in each for­mat of the game de­vel­op­ing? What are the new tech­niques that are com­ing in­to play? I love watch­ing crick­et. It's my on­ly vice, re­al­ly, to the cha­grin of my wife and fam­i­ly. And so that is just my growth mind­set.

GM: You've grown with the CPL from the start. You've come through T20's evo­lu­tion. But in this present mo­ment, where do you see it head­ing in the chang­ing land­scape of glob­al pro­fes­sion­al crick­et?

IB: Look, we've had some great play­ers. Bra­vo is one. I call him a great of this for­mat of the game. His bowl­ing, his slow ball, and his wide York­ers changed the game glob­al­ly, not just re­gion­al­ly. Pol­lard, when you look at his num­bers, has to be one of the great­est, giv­en where he bats in the or­der and giv­en his strike rate. Chris Gayle, Sunil Nar­ine, and I call them the big four. I put An­dre Rus­sell, I sup­pose, in that group, the big five. Those are guys that have changed the game. Now, as they ex­it stage left, there has to be a new gen­er­a­tion of play­ers com­ing along. And CPL is that plat­form to show­case the wares of the next gen­er­a­tion, whether they're bat­ters, fast bowlers, or spin­ners, be­cause I think the T20 game draws an au­di­ence. T20 has a mar­ket­place of its own. And we have to ac­cept that. We can­not fight it be­cause a gen­er­a­tion likes some­thing else. I think the mar­ket will de­cide that all for­mats of the game have their own en­ter­tain­ment price.

GM: What are your thoughts on the way these fran­chis­es have set­tled and what that promis­es for the fu­ture?

IB: CPL is chal­lenged by the num­ber of T20 tour­na­ments around the world, the MLC, which con­clud­ed not that long ago, and The Hun­dred in Eng­land, which sort of crossed over (in­to CPL's win­dow). So the bat­tle for the best play­ers is be­com­ing, more of a chal­lenge for al­most every league apart from the very, very top ones. So I would ad­vise the play­ers in an­swer­ing your ques­tion; don't take this tour­na­ment for grant­ed. You are hired to do a job for each fran­chise that you play for. Give it your best. It is a shop win­dow where, if you per­form, there is em­ploy­ment be­yond these bor­ders. But win­ning for your fran­chise in the CPL tour­na­ment is the pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive as to why you have been em­ployed. So I think we'll con­tin­ue to try to draw crowds to tele­vi­sion, to your mo­bile phones, and to the grounds in par­tic­u­lar. The last thing I'd say is, I want this to con­tin­ue to be spread be­yond the male bas­tion and al­low the women to have more, al­low more games for the women. CPL has done a good thing by in­clud­ing the women's tour­na­ment. I want to see that ex­pand­ed be­cause the young tal­ent that I'm see­ing, needs a broad­er base to ex­e­cute their skills and to get in­to that shop win­dow as well and I think we need to have more.