Follow UsIt is not very often that you see famous South African, Pakistani and Australian players ply their trade in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), the biggest T20 league in the West Indies. This is mostly because the CPL coincides with the summer cricket season in England and most of these stars prefer to dwell on the English route.
However, there have been instances where many stars have made appearances in the CPL. Many of those players, who are actually superstars in the cricketing world, might have gone unnoticed in their limited CPL appearances.
One of the greatest Test batters of the century, Australia’s Steve Smith did appear in one season of the Caribbean Premier League when he donned the Barbados Royals shirt and played seven games.
It was in the 2018 season when Smith came to the Caribbean in search of some cricket as he was banned from playing in Australia as well as the Indian Premier League after the sandpaper gate. He replaced Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan in the team which was then called the Barbados Tridents.
In the seven matches that the then-29-year-old played, he scored 185 runs at an average of 26.42 and a strike rate of 127 with one fifty to his name.
Pace ace from South Africa, Dale Steyn, signed for the Jamaica Tallawahs to play the 2016 season as a replacement for then-injured Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga. Steyn did more than enough as he claimed 12 wickets in eight games at a brilliant average of 14.66 and an economy rate of 6.81.
It was only unfortunate that the CPL crowd could not see more of him that season as he was recalled by Cricket South Africa for the award ceremony. The Tallawahs went on to win that season in a rain-curtailed finale. The Tallawahs though, no longer are a part of the CPL.
Babar Azam’s stars might not be aligning for him right now, as the batter, who was once compared to Virat Kohli, has failed to score a century in almost two years in international cricket. He has gone 72 innings without a ton across formats.
But there was a time, not long ago, when 22-year-old Babar was picked to replace Chris Lynn in the Guyana Amazon Warriors (GAW) squad for CPL 2017. This happened after Babar’s terrific showing in the Champions Trophy 2017 at a very young age. However, the CPL season, his only, so far, was not so good for the then-upcoming star.
Babar could only muster 79 runs with a high score of 23 in five innings, striking below 100.