Amazon Warriors re-sign four overseas members of champion side

Source: Trinidad Guardian

CAS­TRIES, St Lu­cia - Four of the five over­seas sign­ings that helped Guyana Ama­zon War­riors win the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) Twen­ty20 tour­na­ment for the first time will be back for this year's tour­na­ment, start­ing on Au­gust 29.

CPL or­gan­is­ers an­nounced that the War­riors have con­firmed their over­seas sign­ings for tour­na­ment, and last year's cap­tain Im­ran Tahir and pace bowl­ing fel­low South Africa in­ter­na­tion­al Dwaine Pre­to­rius, as well as the Pak­istani pair of open­er Saim Ayub and burly wick­et­keep­er-bats­man Azam Khan will all be re­turn­ing.

The quar­tet will be joined by Afghanistan open­er Rah­man­ul­lah Gur­baz, the most pro­lif­ic bats­man so far in the ICC Men's Twen­ty20 World Cup tak­ing place right now in the Caribbean and the Unit­ed States.

The lanky Pre­to­rius, 35, bagged 20 wick­ets at 15.45 apiece, and flam­boy­ant Pak­istan-born leg-spin­ner Tahir, 45, grabbed 18 at 15.44, and they were the top two bowlers in the CPL last sea­son.

Ayub had the sec­ond high­est ag­gre­gate of 478 runs - three less than West In­dies One-day In­ter­na­tion­al cap­tain and War­riors team­mate Shai Hope - in the CPL last year, while Azam played a cou­ple of handy knocks in the clos­ing stages of match­es and end­ed with the fourth high­est ag­gre­gate for the War­riors of 224.

The War­riors pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced that Hope was among five mem­bers of the West In­dies squad play­ing in the T20 World Cup had been re­tained among the core group of Caribbean play­ers for this year's tour­na­ment.

Hope, the 2023 CPL Play­er-of-the-Tour­na­ment, as well as the Guyanese four­some of fast bowler Shamar Joseph, left-arm spin­ner Gu­dakesh Motie, left-hand­ed bats­man Shim­ron Het­my­er, and all-rounder Ro­mario Shep­herd have been re­tained.

The War­riors have three more spots to fill in their squad, and this will be done dur­ing the play­er draft in Ju­ly.