Michael Hall, tournament director of the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL), believes that there are opportunities for players from across the West Indies and beyond to follow the lead of Rovman Powell and launch their careers on the international stage when the Player Draft for the 2017 campaign is decided today.

With the likes of Rovman Powell and Nicolas Pooran blazing a trail in 2016 and following on from the path paved by the likes of Carlos Brathwaite, Dwayne Bravo, Jason Mohammed and Daren Sammy amongst many others since the tournament’s inception back in 2013, Hall believes that opportunity can knock for players to emerge and break through in front of a large global audience.

Looking ahead to the Player Draft for the fifth instalment of the biggest party in sport, which will be shown live on the Hero CPL’s

Facebook channel from 10:00 am (Barbados time) this morning, Hall explained that there was significant interest by established internationals and emerging players from the likes of Afghanistan, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the UK to register for the biggest party in sport.

“This year teams have been allowed to retain as many players as they wanted from the previous squads last year.

“A good portion of the teams are already in place. The rule was changed this year because the players were under three-year contracts. The interest has been extremely high and there is an increased number of players from Afghanistan who have entered the Draft. A lot of registration from West Indian players this year, which is no different from the previous years.

“The interest is extremely high and I think that the younger West Indian players have seen people like Rovman Powell, who emerged as a star player in last year’s CPL. They’re all throwing their hats into the ring to see if a team will take a chance on them and if they get picked up it can be a chance to launch their own careers.”