The truth is, the less said on the 2024 ver­sion of the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) will best do this im­i­ta­tion of years gone, the jus­tice it de­serves.

There were so many ar­eas of what turned in­to a re­tire­ment par­ty for sev­er­al play­ers in the fi­nals and else­where (led by, but not con­signed to on­ly 40-year-old vic­to­ri­ous, for­mer South African play­er Faf Du Plessis, vic­to­ri­ous cap­tain of the St Lu­cia Kings and 45-year-old, for­mer South African play­er Im­ran Tahir, cap­tain of the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors).

So let us start with many con­grat­u­la­tions to the two fi­nal­ists as they played the hands they were dealt and with­in the rules that were ei­ther im­posed or adopt­ed based on pre­vail­ing cir­cum­stances.

How­ev­er, ul­ti­mate­ly the Caribbean peo­ple lost be­cause the doubt and ques­tions over the au­then­tic­i­ty and trust­wor­thi­ness of this par­a­digm that was CPL 2024 must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed and per­sons must be called to ac­count in a trans­par­ent way with con­se­quences.

While I know that will not hap­pen as many of these for­eign­ers who run the CPL per­ceive the re­gion as one that blows hot air and can eas­i­ly be sat­is­fied by a ses­sion of rum and more rim of dif­fer­ent shades, toss in some flavoured seafood and even out neb­u­lous me­dia will come apart at the seam.

On ra­dio re­cent­ly, I was asked why our broad­cast­ers were silent to many ques­tions such as:

1) A play­er ap­peal­ing a DRS re­view de­ci­sion while in the dress­ing room.

2) Chang­ing times of restart of a match hin­dered by hu­man er­ror not rain or bad weath­er.

Most of these per­sons whether from T&T or not have to earn a liv­ing and there­fore will not be will­ing to sac­ri­fice the rich­es of flavour but ul­ti­mate­ly his­to­ry will hunt them down lat­er as they grow old­er and re­flect on the er­rors of their ways.

But note­wor­thy while many call feel ashamed of the jour­nal­ists in this coun­try, I have to com­mend Rawle Toney of Guyana who stepped for­ward to say the truth, that the lights prob­lems at Prov­i­dence oc­curred on at least two oc­ca­sions in Au­gust 2024 and both the man­age­ment of the Prov­i­dence Ground and the Gov­ern­ment would have been in­volved in the de­ba­cles in Au­gust. The ob­vi­ous re­tort would be in what form or fash­ion, did the Two Pe­tes (Rus­sell and Miller) have this in­for­ma­tion be­fore the venue was utilised for match­es.

The stain on the CPL is so se­vere in so­cial me­dia and around the world that I ex­pect in the next few days we will have the usu­al sus­pects singing the blues about how “won­der­ful the tour­na­ment was” while col­lect­ing the blue colour of notes for their eye-catch­ing work.

Crick­et West In­dies can­not es­cape their past as well, as they im­posed the CPL own­er­ship (still to be as­cer­tained and con­firmed) up­on all six mil­lion peo­ple, once Unit­ed by crick­et but now in­stead di­vid­ed by doubt and das­tard­ly deeds. I would like to tell the British who run CPL that this is not the Eng­lish Pre­mier League, where op­pos­ing fans are sep­a­rat­ed in venues. In the re­gion, we are ac­cus­tomed to sit­ting to­geth­er and heck­ling and ban­ter­ing with each oth­er, but the re­cent in­creas­ing in­ci­dents of fight­ing es­pe­cial­ly in Guyana are not good and un­want­ed.

I have been asked by many to have the CPL an­swer cer­tain ques­tions but I sense there is some trep­i­da­tion whether man-made or oth­er­wise to run far and avoid.

Here are a few ques­tions for the CPL com­mu­ni­ca­tion team (if they still ex­ist):

1. Eco­nom­ic im­pact

What is the es­ti­mat­ed rev­enue gen­er­at­ed from the tour­na­ment (tick­et sales, spon­sor­ship, broad­cast­ing rights, mer­chan­dise)?

How did the lo­cal busi­ness­es (ho­tels, restau­rants, trans­port ser­vices) ben­e­fit from the in­flux of fans?

What was the im­pact on em­ploy­ment dur­ing the tour­na­ment (tem­po­rary and per­ma­nent jobs)?

How did the tour­na­ment af­fect tourism in the host coun­tries?

Were there any long-term in­vest­ments in sports in­fra­struc­ture or fa­cil­i­ties as a re­sult of host­ing the tour­na­ment?

2. So­cial and cul­tur­al im­pact

How did the tour­na­ment in­flu­ence the sense of na­tion­al pride or uni­ty?

How has the tour­na­ment in­spired lo­cal youth to par­tic­i­pate in sports or crick­et?

Were there any ini­tia­tives dur­ing the tour­na­ment to pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty or in­clu­siv­i­ty in sports?

How did the tour­na­ment im­pact the per­cep­tion of the coun­try in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, es­pe­cial­ly among vis­it­ing fans and me­dia?

3. En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact

What mea­sures were tak­en to min­imise the en­vi­ron­men­tal foot­print of the tour­na­ment (eg, waste man­age­ment, car­bon off­set­ting)?

Were there any no­table en­vi­ron­men­tal ini­tia­tives tied to the event (eg, green sta­di­ums, eco-friend­ly trans­porta­tion)?

What was the lev­el of en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion (pol­lu­tion, traf­fic con­ges­tion) dur­ing and af­ter the tour­na­ment?

4. Sport­ing im­pact

How did the per­for­mance of the na­tion­al crick­et team dur­ing the tour­na­ment af­fect the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the sport?

Has there been an in­crease in par­tic­i­pa­tion in crick­et at the grass­roots lev­el as a re­sult of the tour­na­ment?

Were there any new crick­et tal­ents dis­cov­ered dur­ing the tour­na­ment?

5. Me­dia and broad­cast­ing im­pact

What was the view­er­ship of the tour­na­ment do­mes­ti­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly?

How did the tour­na­ment af­fect so­cial me­dia en­gage­ment and dig­i­tal con­tent cre­ation around crick­et?

Were there any in­no­va­tions in broad­cast­ing or me­dia cov­er­age that set new trends in sports pre­sen­ta­tion?

6. Po­lit­i­cal im­pact

Did the tour­na­ment in­flu­ence any changes in na­tion­al or lo­cal sports poli­cies?

How was the tour­na­ment used as a diplo­mat­ic tool, es­pe­cial­ly if in­ter­na­tion­al/Re­gion­al teams/play­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed?

Was there any gov­ern­ment in­volve­ment in the Tour­na­ment?

7. Long-term lega­cy

What last­ing im­prove­ments in in­fra­struc­ture (sta­di­ums, trans­porta­tion, etc) are at­trib­ut­able to the tour­na­ment?

How has the tour­na­ment im­pact­ed fu­ture sports event plan­ning or the pos­si­bil­i­ty of host­ing larg­er glob­al events?

What lessons were learned in terms of man­ag­ing large-scale sport­ing events?

So next we have 2025 but I wish to let the CPL know that the peo­ple of the re­gion (ma­jor­i­ty) are not as back­ward and out­dat­ed in facts and in­tel­li­gence as many be­lieve so we will “Not For­get”.