Wednesday 4th February 2015 – Kingston, Jamaica: Six young players from ICC Associate Members in the Americas region have been selected to trial at each of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) franchises in June.
American, Steven Taylor, and Bermudan, Christian Burgess, are joined by four Canadian cricketers, Nitish Kumar, Nikhil Dutta, Satsimranjit Dhindsa and Farhan Malik who will all be keen to make an impression in the Caribbean later this year.
The ICC Americas player will be allocated to one of the six CPL franchises, along with four West Indies Under-19 cricketers for each franchise, for a pre-tournament training camp. One rookie contract per franchise will then be offered from amongst these five possible candidates.
The six Associate Member players have been selected based on performances for their National teams, as well as performances during talent development initiatives conducted by the ICC Americas Regional Development programme. In particular, this included a dedicated camp in Barbados in December 2014.
For Steven Taylor, a 21 year-old batsman-wicket keeper from Florida with Jamaican roots, it will be a great opportunity to extend his game and hopefully provide him a pathway to playing professional cricket.
“I’m really excited about the opportunity to impress CPL coaches and players and hopefully prove that North America can be a recruiting ground for the CPL and other first class teams,” Taylor said.
Nikhil Dutta, a 20 year-old Toronto based off-spinning all-rounder, was thankful for the opportunity.
“I’m looking forward to working hard over the next 5 months to make the most out of this opportunity. It should be a great learning experience for us and hopefully we can impress enough to earn a contract,” said Dutta.
Whilst the players are currently spread between Calgary, Toronto, Florida and the UK for study, they will each follow training programmes and also come together for additional training commitments prior to the camps. They will be involved in the CPL franchise training camps from June 13th to 18th, with the 2015 CPL scheduled to run from June 21st – July 26th.
The franchises to which the players have been assigned will be announced shortly after the draft.