Hayley Matthews is back at the helm of the Barbados Tridents Women, and they have also drafted legend Suzie Bates into the squad for the upcoming Limacol Women’s Caribbean Premier League (WCPL).
The tournament officials announced the overseas player on Friday morning and Bates, a T20 World Cup winner with New Zealand, was named in the Bajan squad.
Matthews missed the 2025 season after she had surgery on an injured shoulder. Last year, as Barbados Royals, the team won their third consecutive title when they were led by allrounder Chinelle Henry. She has switched to her native Jamaica Empress and will be the captain in their first season.
Bates is a strongly-built top-order batter and seam bowler. She ranks among the greatest players of all time and is a future ICC Hall of Famer. In her career which started in 2006, she has played 184 One-Day Internationals and 186 T20 Internationals. She has scored 10,740 runs with 14 centuries – with top scores of 168 in ODIs and 124 not out in T20Is. She has also taken 145 wickets with best of 4-7 in ODIs and 4-26 in T20Is.
This is the second stint for Bates in the WCPL. She previously played for Guyana Amazon Warriors. She will fill the void left by Chamari Athapaththu, the dynamic ambidextrous Sri Lankan allrounder, who has been a fixture for the Barbados franchise in the previous three seasons. She is missing as she represents her country in the Asian Cup T20 tournament.
This is the fifth season of the WCPL and all matches will be played in Barbados at the historic Kensington Oval. The tournament has been expanded from three to four teams with the addition of the new Jamaica Empress, joining the Barbados Tridents, Guyana Amazon Warriors, and Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR). The opening match will see the Tridents face-off against TKR on Saturday, September 5. The group stage will feature round-robin matches to take place through to September 13. The playoff will be on Wednesday, September 16 and the final on Thursday, September 17, 2026. (PS)
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