Pollard, Smith abandon Barbados Tridents for IPL teamsby Earl Best | Saturday 23 August 2014 |
The Barbados Tridents, who last weekend won US$250,000 for beating the Guyana Amazons to clinch the Limacol Caribbean Premier League 2014 title, will soon be US$300,000 richer.
Or will they?
Whatever the answer, one suspects that team management would somehow be happier without the money and with their two major local players, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Smith, and Pakistani foreign professional Shoaib Malik in their ranks next month when the Champions League T20 2014 bowls off on September 13.
Photo: Trinidad and Tobago batsman Kieron Pollard will line up for the Mumbai Indians rather than Barbados Tridents in the Champions League T20.
The trio were the major contributors to the Tridents’ CPL success, Pollard as captain if not so much as batsman (agg. 200, ave. 25), Malik (agg. 406, ave. 50.75) and Smith (agg. 353, ave. 44.12) with the bat. All three have, however, opted to represent other sides in the Champions League; Pollard and Smith turning out for the Chennai Super Kings and Malik for the Hobart Hurricanes.
Unlike Malik, the Australian pair of George Bailey and David Miller have opted for the Kings XI Punjab over the Hobart Hurricanes. In fact, all eight IPL players selected by more than one team competing in this year’s edition of the lucrative tournament have chosen to represent their IPL franchise rather than their national domestic team.
Smith, Pollard, Malik and the two Aussies aside, Corey Anderson and Lasith Malinga will play for the Mumbai Indians instead of Northern Knights and Southern Express respectively and Pat Cummins and Jacques Kallis will play for the Kolkata Knight Riders and not the Perth Scorchers and the Cape Cobras.
All of these players were asked to indicate which side they preferred to represent and did so of their own free will. Once that was done, their “second” teams were permitted to replace them.
To replace the trio who have abandoned them,
the Tridents have already named James Franklin, the left-handed New Zealand all-rounder who has played for the Guyana Amazon Warriors and for the Mumbai Indians, Dilshan Munaweera, the 25-year-old right-handed opening batsman and off-spinner from Sri Lanka, and Elton Chigumbura, the 28-year-old all-rounder from Zimbabwe.
Photo: Trinidad and Tobago cricket star Dwayne Bravo (right) will represent the Chennai Super Kings at the Champions League T20.
According to CLT20 governing council member Dean Kino, “CLT20 regulations state that when a player elects to play for their ‘away’ team, that team must pay the ‘home’ team $150,000 compensation per player. A ‘home’ team is classified as a team from the country a player is eligible to represent in international cricket.”
And that is where the questions arise about whether the Tridents will in fact collect any monies for the loss of their star players.Despite the national identification that precedes the name of each of the six teams in the CPL, if ex-Spalk Minister Anil Roberts was right, these are franchises and not “national” teams. It is therefore debatable whether under the existing rules the Tridents qualify to claim the relevant compensation.
The compensation issue does not arise for several other CPL players who will also be participating in the 2014 CLT20, the main leg of which takes place from September 17 to October 4 in four Indian cities, Raipur, Mohali, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
Two qualifiers to play in each of the two groups in the main draw will be determined in the qualifying stage, involving the Lahore Lions, Mumbai Indians, Northern Knights and Southern Express. This phase begins on September 13 and runs to September 16.
Along with Jamaica Tallawahs all-rounder Andre Russell, mystery spinner Sunil Narine, who was left out of the West Indies Test squad that went down 1-2 to New Zealand in June, has been included in the Kolkata Knight Riders line-up. KKR play their first CLT20 game on September 17, the scheduled last day of the Second Test between West Indies and Bangladesh.
Photo: Guyana Amazon Warriors and Trinidad and Tobago cricketer Sunil Narine (centre).
Other West Indian players who will participate in the Champions League are West Indies ODI captain Dwayne Bravo, successful T&T Red Steel leg-spinner Samuel Badree and Guyana Amazon Warriors’ opener Lendl Simmons, who was the Player of the Tournament in the CPL.The first two will both represent the Chennai Super Kings while Simmons, whose 447 aggregate was the highest of this year’s CPL but who has struggled in the first two ODIs against Bangladesh, will don the Mumbai Indians’ colours.
Barbados Tridents squad: Jonathan Carter, Elton Chigumbura Shane Dowrich, Rayad Emrit, James Franklin, Jason Holder, Akeal Hosein, Kyle Mayers, Neil McKenzie, Jeevan Mendis, Dilshan Munaweera, Ashley Nurse, William Perkins, Ravi Rampaul, Raymon Reifer.GROUP A: Kolkata Knight Riders, Dolphins, Perth Scorchers, Chennai Super Kings, qualifier A
GROUP B: Kings XI Punjab, Cape Cobras, Hobart Hurricanes, Barbados Tridents, qualifier B.
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