By Neto Baptiste
West Indies and Antiguan fast bowler Alzarri Joseph will feature for the St Lucia Zouks in this year’s Caribbean Premier League (CPL) set to start on August 28 in St Kitts and Nevis.
Joseph, who had represented the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots since 2016, was not listed amongst their retained players last week. He will however join his Antiguan counterpart Rahkeem Cornwall at the Zouks for the ninth edition of the six-team tournament.
Last week, the Patriots revealed they had retained Evin Lewis, Fabian Allen, Sheldon Cottrell, Rayad Emrit, Jon-Russ Jaggesar, Joshua Da Silva and Dominic Drakes with no mention of the Antiguan who is currently representing Worcestershire in the ECB County Championships.
Cornwall, right-arm off-break bowler, was named as a retained player by the St Lucia Zouks last week while West Indies and Antiguan leg-spinner Hayden Walsh Jr was retained by the Barbados Tridents.
Walsh is currently part of a provisional 18-man squad that was recently released by Cricket West Indies, ahead of upcoming international matches. The squad is based in St Lucia where news broke recently that one member of the team tested positive for the coronavirus.
Antigua and Barbuda’s wicketkeeper batsman Devon Thomas will also feature in this year’s CPL as he is set to turnout for the Patriots.
Last week, organisers revealed that the tournament will take place at a single venue in St Kitts. Warner Park will host all 33 matches across the six-team competition.
Last year’s event was held in Trinidad and Tobago amid the Covid-19 pandemic and staged at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy and Queen’s Park Oval.
A bio-secure bubble was deployed to ensure all teams and support staff were kept safe.
The CPL had a combined viewership of 523 million in 2020, which was a staggering rise of 67 percent from 2019.