CPL launches hall of fame to honour greatest contributors

The Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) has launched a Hall of Fame to recog­nise the play­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors whose con­tri­bu­tions have helped shape the re­gion­al T20 tour­na­ment since its in­cep­tion in 2013.

The new ini­tia­tive will see two peo­ple in­duct­ed an­nu­al­ly - one play­er and one in­di­vid­ual whose off-field work has made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the com­pe­ti­tion. Ac­cord­ing to the or­gan­is­ers, the Hall of Fame aims to pre­serve the lega­cy of the tour­na­ment while recog­nis­ing ex­cel­lence in per­for­mance, lead­er­ship and ser­vice.

The in­au­gur­al in­duc­tion cer­e­mo­ny will take place at a gala din­ner in Bar­ba­dos on Sep­tem­ber 15, where the first two in­ductees will be ho­n­oured. The event will al­so serve as a fundrais­er for The Sir Clive Lloyd Health­care Foun­da­tion, sup­port­ing its work to in­crease prostate can­cer aware­ness, test­ing and ear­ly de­tec­tion across the Caribbean through its Great Catch ini­tia­tive.

Since its launch 13 years ago, the CPL has pro­duced sev­er­al mem­o­rable per­for­mances and records. Chris Gayle led Ja­maica Tallawahs to the tour­na­ment's first ti­tle in 2013 with an un­beat­en 47 in the fi­nal against Guyana Ama­zon War­riors at Queen's Park Oval. Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers lat­er set the com­pe­ti­tion's high­est-ever to­tal of 267 for two and be­came the first fran­chise to win three, and lat­er five, CPL ti­tles.

Oth­er no­table achieve­ments in­clude Dwayne Bra­vo's suc­cess as the tour­na­ment's lead­ing wick­et-tak­er and mul­ti­ple cham­pi­onship win­ner, Tim Seifert and An­dre Rus­sell shar­ing the record for the fastest CPL cen­tu­ry af­ter reach­ing three fig­ures from 53 de­liv­er­ies, and Shak­ib Al Hasan's record bowl­ing fig­ures of six wick­ets for six runs.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Pe­te Rus­sell said the Hall of Fame was cre­at­ed to en­sure the tour­na­ment's defin­ing mo­ments and con­trib­u­tors are per­ma­nent­ly recog­nised.

"CPL has giv­en us thir­teen years of mo­ments peo­ple still talk about – Gayle in 2013, Pol­lard's record-break­ing eigh­teenth ti­tle, Dwayne Bra­vo's wick­ets and wins, and nights no­body who was there will for­get. The Hall of Fame is how we make sure those mo­ments, and the peo­ple who cre­at­ed them, are nev­er lost. As we head in­to our sec­ond decade, it's time to give this tour­na­ment's his­to­ry a per­ma­nent home," Rus­sell said.

The CPL said the Hall of Fame will be­come an an­nu­al fea­ture of the tour­na­ment, with fu­ture in­ductees an­nounced ahead of each gala din­ner.

The iden­ti­ties of the first play­er and off-field con­trib­u­tor to be in­duct­ed are ex­pect­ed to be re­vealed in the com­ing weeks.