CPL 2019: Barbados Tridents ropes in Alex Hales as their first pick

The upcoming Cricket World Cup is special as it was preceded by the biggest T20 league in the world, the Indian Premier League. The ICC event will also be succeeded by a massive T20 contest, the seventh season of the Caribbean Premier League that starts on September 4 and the auction draft for which has begun already. The season was initially supposed to start on August 21 but was postponed as India will be touring West Indies at that time.

England’s banned opening batsman Alex Hales was one of the members of the first draft that was released in the auction of the CPL 2019. He has been roped in by the Barbados Tridents, one of the six franchises that have been a part of the contest since the inaugural edition in 2013. Having played well in the first three seasons, including the 2014 edition in which, they emerged as champions, the Barbados-based team has ended up in the lowest positions over the past three seasons.

Meanwhile, the ownership of the said team has been transferred from Vijay Mallya to a USA-based company, CMG Companies (CMG) who are a team of local and international investors Mallya has now lost his rights to the Tridents, besides Royal Challengers Bangalore and Formula 1 team Force India. This year the franchise has also named the Test and ODI captain of the West Indies National Cricket Team Jason Holder as the marquee player of the season.

Coming back to Hales, the year was not as great for the limited-overs specialist as he was suspended for 21 days by the ECB for the use of recreational drugs right ahead of the Cricket World Cup which led to his omission from the squad. However, in his mission to make a steady comeback the Nottinghamshire club has decided for their recruit to be a part of their 50-overs unit.

Hales will soon be removed from the 21-day suspension imposed on him by the board, but by that time England will be busy with the much-anticipated Ashes which ends on September 16. Meanwhile, Hales- a limited overs specialist will get his opportunity to shine in the T20 league.

Here are some other major recruits of the Tridents in CPL 2019

Besides Hales, the Barbados team has also recruited Nepal’s 18-year-old talented leggie Sandeep Lamichhane in round five of the CPL 2019 draft at $70,000. It’s indeed a huge pay raise for the youngster who was roped in only in round 13 last year by SKN Patriots for $5000.

The other recruits are Asif Ali, the power-hitter of Pakistan who has made it to their World Cup squad as well. Besides Asif Ali, Wahab Riaz and all-rounder Imad Wasim are the other Pakistan recruits for the Tridents. Amongst the local recruits are Shai Hope, Johnson Charles, Jonathan Carter, and Ashley Nurse. 

[interaction id=”5ce27636848e7414887089f1″]