Another T20 bash, another T&T win

So the established order has been reaffirmed. A Caribbean T20 tournament is played and Trinidad & Tobago are victorious.

When the West Indies Cricket Board disbanded the traditional inter-island Caribbean T20 tournament after the January 2013 edition to form the Caribbean Premier League that year, the cricket-loving public of the twin-island republic were the most resistant to the change. Their understandable aversion was based on the historical domestic dominance of the "Red Force" in the format, which has seen them win four of six (T20) tournaments and represent the Caribbean well in the now discontinued Champions League.

The WICB mooted the noble idea of spreading Trinidad's talent around to the respective territories in order to make the CPL more competitive. In this year's edition each team except Jamaica Tallawahs had its fair share of T&T players - Guyana Amazon Warriors had Denesh Ramdin, Lendl Simmons and Sunil Narine; Barbados Tridents had Kieron Pollard, Ravi Rampaul, Rayad Emrit, Navin Stewart, Imran Khan and Akeal Hosein; St Lucia Zouks had Shannon Gabriel; and St Kitts & Nevis Patriots had Evin Lewis and Nicholas Pooran.

CPL 2015 was an indication of the board's vision coming to fruition, with St Lucia Zouks and St Kitts & Nevis Patriots contesting for finals positions strongly going into the last week of the preliminary round play.

Whether it was the controversial former minister of sport Anil Roberts demanding the T&T name be removed from the Red Steel franchise last year; or accusations that too many players linked to the famous Queen's Park Cricket Club were being selected in the Red Steel team during the draft process; or a premature online petition for Dwayne Bravo to removed as captain, T&T has been at the centre of various CPL storms big and small.

Red Steel in this year's CPL was on paper clearly not as strong as a full-strength Trinidad team would be. But after struggling in away fixtures and being bottom of the table (despite having played fewer games) - they timed their run into form perfectly, winning six of the their seven home matches with the aid of a powerful "12th man" crowd factor at the Queen's Park Oval.

No other players epitomised the pleasure of playing at home as much as the Bravo brothers. Darren struggled for form after his match-winning knocked helped West Indies draw the recent Test series against England, and his CPL form of 30 runs in six innings away from Port-of-Spain reinforced the point. But his two devastating 80-plus scores versus former champions Barbados Tridents and Jamaica Tallawahs at the Oval showed wonderful glimpses of why he has regularly been compared to Brian Lara.

While other promising young batsmen worldwide such as Steven Smith, Kane Williamson, Virat Kohli and Joe Root continuing to evolve, "Lil Bravo" has certainly stagnated, and West Indies fans continue to wait for him to re-establish himself to a similar level.

Bravo Sr and Kieron Pollard provided an interesting subplot to the tournament. The two were ridiculously dropped from the West Indies World Cup squad and Dwayne stripped of the West Indies ODI captaincy, which most fans and media (and the duo themselves) saw as the players being victimised for their roles in the pull-out from the India tour - though the WICB claimed otherwise. Both players will have been glad to have taken their teams to the championship game, given the pressure they have been under.

Since being axed from the ODI team, they helped Trinidad & Tobago win the domestic 50-overs tournament in January. Bravo's bowling has regained spark: he was the leading wicket-taker in both the IPL and now the CPL. Pollard's all-round contributions were key to Mumbai Indians winning the IPL, and so was his captaincy in getting Barbados Tridents to the CPL final.

It is well documented how West Indies cricket politics drove Bravo into retiring from Test cricket, denying the side his services in the longer format. Pollard's captaincy gained great reviews during the CPL and it makes the WICB selectors' decision to entrust Jason Holder with the one-day captaincy when he is still establishing himself as a player look premature.

The international players were a bit disappointing in this year's CPL, with none of them really being supremely dominant, though they contributed in key phases in various matches. In the lists of the top 10 run scorers and wicket-takers, West Indies players occupied seven and eight spots respectively.

Such performances show that if further player-versus-board issues don't surface in the coming months, the Caribbean side have most bases covered looking ahead to the 2016 World T20.

Arguably the most impressive international acquisition was South African left-arm chinaman bowler Tabraiz Shamsi. First spotted by Marlon Samuels during West Indies' recent tour to South Africa, Shamsi kept many batsmen in check with his variations. It will be interesting to see if the South African selectors give the 25-year old an international call-up.

Off the field two lingering positive and negative stories stood out. The owners of the IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders acquiring a controlling stake in Red Steel was a great fillip for the CPL organisers. Knight Riders CEO Venky Mysore and co-owner Shah Rukh Khan could not have asked for a better investment than seeing the Red Steel win. The Indian franchise's involvement could open new doors for the CPL. Other IPL teams could partner Caribbean franchises, Indian players might play in the CPL, and Trinidad local Sunil Narine could come back to play for Red Steel in future tournaments.

At the other end of the spectrum, some trepidation is being expressed about the amount of money Caribbean governments and corporate entities are paying to host matches. The Antigua government could no longer afford to do so, which is why the Antigua Hawksbills franchise was disbanded.

In recent articles on ESPNcricinfo and in the Jamaica Gleaner, renowned veteran West Indies journalists Tony Cozier and Tony Becca noted concerns about the situation. The CPL will at some point before the 2016 tournament have to tackle the issue, because nobody wants it to end abruptly like the Stanford T20.

The aim of the CPL from a West Indies senior team long-term perspective is to make money that the same governments and corporate entities are not interested in giving the WICB. The WICB needs to be able to invest in all levels of the local game to help West Indies senior cricket revive from its current decline, especially in the longer formats. It is incumbent that all parties involved get this dynamic right.