Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) will open this year's Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) cam­paign against the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors on Au­gust 18 at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do.

The tour­na­ment which runs from Au­gust 18 to Sep­tem­ber 10 will take place at two venues alone for the first time, the BLCA and the Queen's Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain.

The 33-match sea­son will see 23 of those match­es tak­ing place at the BLCA and 10 at the Oval.

The first match will see last year’s run­ners-up, Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, take on Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR), while the sec­ond match will be last year’s cham­pi­ons, Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents tak­ing on the St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots.

TKR man­ag­er Col­in Bor­de is ea­ger for the bat­tle to start, say­ing: "Yes we are keen for the crick­et to start. We open against the War­riors and we will be ready for that. Our play­ers are pro­fes­sion­als and they have been do­ing their own thing in terms of prepar­ing for the tour­na­ment and when they get to­geth­er they will pol­ish off their prepa­ra­tions for this tour­na­ment. Guyana has al­ways been tough and we will be look­ing to pull an ear­ly vic­to­ry over them to set the tone for the tour­na­ment."

Man­ag­er of the War­riors, Omar Khan said: "It is al­ways a tough ask when you come up against the TKR. The his­to­ry of the tour­na­ment shows that it is al­ways a fierce bat­tle be­tween the two and we are go­ing in­to that bat­tle ful­ly aware of that. We all know that it is a tour­na­ment with a dif­fer­ence this year as it will be more than just be­ing phys­i­cal­ly ready but al­so men­tal­ly giv­en the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion con­cern­ing the COVID-19 but we are ready. All our play­ers will be here by Au­gust 3.

Fans will have to wait un­til game 22 for a re­peat of last year’s fi­nal with the Tri­dents tak­ing on the Ama­zon War­riors.

The tour­na­ment will take place be­hind closed doors in a bio-se­cure en­vi­ron­ment with a se­ries of strin­gent pro­to­cols in place to pro­tect those in­volved in the com­pe­ti­tion and the wider pop­u­la­tion, from the spread the COVID-19 virus.

Damien O’Dono­hoe, the Hero CPL’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, is ex­cit­ed about the up­com­ing sea­son.

“This year will be a dif­fer­ent CPL, but the stan­dard will be high­er than ever. We have seen the ap­petite for live sport since it has re­turned af­ter a pro­longed ab­sence, and the in­ter­est in CPL will be high­er than ever with it be­ing the first fran­chise T20 tour­na­ment to re­turn.”

Speak­ing about the an­nounce­ment of the tour­na­ment fix­tures Hero CPL’s COO, Pe­te Rus­sell, said: “We would like to ex­press our grat­i­tude to the gov­ern­ment of T&T for help­ing us to put on this tour­na­ment in such dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. We are de­light­ed that we are able to de­liv­er a tour­na­ment that is en­sur­ing the safe­ty of the pub­lic and the play­ers and that will be of such a high stan­dard.”

Hero CPL 2020 Fix­tures

BLCA

Au­gust 18

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers vs Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, 10 am

Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents vs St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots, 5.30pm

Au­gust 19

Ja­maica Tallawahs vs St Lu­cia Zouks, 10 am

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors v St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots, 5.30pm

Aug 20

St Lu­cia Zouks v Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents, 10 am

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers v Ja­maica Tallawahs, 5:.30pm

Aug 22

St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots v St Lu­cia Zouks, 10 am

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors v Ja­maica Tallawahs, 5.30pm

Aug 23

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers v Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents, 10 am

Aug 24

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors v St Lu­cia Zouks, 5.30 pm

Queen’s Park Oval

Aug 25

St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents, 10 am

Ja­maica Tallawahs vs Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, 5.30 pm

Aug 26

St Lu­cia Zouks vs Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, 10 am

Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents vs Ja­maica Tallawahs, 5.30 pm

Aug 27

St Lu­cia Zouks vs St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots, 10 am

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors vs Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, 5.30 pm

Aug 29

Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents vs Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, 10 am

St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots vs Ja­maica Tallawahs, 5.30pm

Aug 30

Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents vs St Lu­cia Zouks, 10 am

St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots vs Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, 5.30 pm

BLCA

Sep­tem­ber 1

Ja­maica Tallawahs vs Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, 10 am

Guyana Ama­zon War­riors vs Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents, 5.30 pm

Sept 2

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers vs St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots, 10 am

St Lu­cia Zouks vs Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, 5.30 pm

Sept 3

Ja­maica Tallawahs v St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots, 10 am

Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents v Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, 5.30 pm

Sept 5

Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers v St Lu­cia Zouks, 10 am

Ja­maica Tallawahs vs Bar­ba­dos Tri­dents, 5.30 pm

Sept 6

St Kitts & Nevis Pa­tri­ots v Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers, 10 am

St Lu­cia Zouks v Ja­maica Tallawahs, 5.30pm

Sept 8, TBC

Se­mi fi­nal 1 (1st v 4th)

Se­mi fi­nal 2 (2nd vs 3rd)

Sept 10, TBC

Fi­nal