For­mer West In­dies cap­tain Sir Vi­vian Richards ex­pects the Li­ma­col Caribbean Pre­mier League to be a re­sound­ing suc­cess, judg­ing from the fans' re­sponse to the Bar­ba­dos and Guyana legs of the in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment. His state­ment came even be­fore his team, the An­tigua Hawks­bills, con­vinc­ing­ly beat the St Lu­cia Zouks by 33 runs in front of a sold out crowd at Beause­jour.

Sell-out crowds were on hand to wit­ness the three games at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos last week, with sim­i­lar turn-outs mark­ing the four ex­cit­ing fix­tures at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um at Prov­i­dence in Guyana, which fin­ished on Sun­day.

Sir Viv, head coach of the Hawks­bills, praised the mas­sive crowd sup­port not­ing that it au­gured well for the fu­ture of the Li­ma­col CPL.

"I be­lieve this tour­na­ment is a great tour­na­ment. The crowds we have seen will have giv­en some in­di­ca­tion as to where we are go­ing and what we would like to achieve, and as the tour­na­ment goes on and I guess it's go­ing to get bet­ter," said Sir Viv, who dom­i­nat­ed the 1970s and 1980s era in 121 Tests and 187 One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als.

"What we have seen show­cased in­di­cates to me that it could get bet­ter. To have such a great start to the tour­na­ment and to have the Bar­ba­dos team win­ning at home was al­so a plus."

The Li­ma­col CPL bowled off in Bar­ba­dos on Ju­ly 30 with a spec­tac­u­lar open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, fol­lowed by the open­ing game where Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents de­feat­ed St Lu­cia Zouks by 17 runs.

Two days lat­er, the Tri­dents re­peat­ed their suc­cess with a 12-run tri­umph over the Hawks­bills be­fore cap­ping the triple­head­er on Sun­day with a four-wick­et ver­dict over Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Steel in a low-scor­ing en­counter.

Over­all, 24 match­es will be played across six venues–An­tigua, Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, Ja­maica, Trinidad and St Lu­cia�–with the se­mi-fi­nals sched­uled for Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad on 22 and 23 Au­gust, and the fi­nal card­ed for 24 Au­gust at the same venue.

Sir Viv, long re­gard­ed as one of the finest bats­men to have played the game, said the Li­ma­col CPL would def­i­nite­ly take West In­dies crick­et to an­oth­er lev­el.

"It is a great re­lief for us in this part of the world to have the CPL es­tab­lished, and to have Dig­i­cel be­ing part of this. They play a big part in what we do here in the Caribbean," Sir Viv stressed.

"I just think it is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for some of our young pro­fes­sion­als to be in­volved in a pro­fes­sion­al tour­na­ment start­ing in the Caribbean. With the oth­er events be­ing staged around the world, this is a plat­form for these kids to al­so trav­el fur­ther afield."

Sir Viv, who mas­tered the lim­it­ed over game but whose ca­reer end­ed be­fore the on­set of Twen­ty20 crick­et, said what was need­ed to suc­ceed in this for­mat was in­ge­nu­ity and quick think­ing. Six fran­chis­es–An­tigua Hawks­bills, Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents, Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, Ja­maica Tallawahs, St Lu­cia Zouks and Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Steel–are con­test­ing the Li­ma­col CPL with 15 play­ers rep­re­sent­ing each side.

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