A unique tournament modelled on the T10 (10 overs cricket) structure of cricket called 6ixty, but with a few changes, has been announced by Cricket West Indies (CWI) and also the Caribbean Premier League (CPL).
The 6ixty will hold its first edition at Warner Park in St. Kitts and Nevis from August 24-28, 2022 just before the CPL 2022. As part of an effort to alter T10 cricket and speed up play, administrators anticipate that the new 60-ball competition will attract “many of the top cricketers” from across the globe.
The 6ixty will have a separate management model than the CPL, with CWI holding the forefront as the primary shareholder and CPL working as an event administrator. The CPL is privately held, with a small part held by CWI due to its function as the supervisory entity. The tournament’s very first primary sponsor would be the sports media platform, Sky Exch.
Rules of 6ixty are as follows:
- Each batting team has two PowerPlay overs, and when the sixth wicket falls, they are all out. Each batting team has six wickets.
- By striking two sixes in the first 12 balls, a team can activate a third PowerPlay.
- There will be 30 balls bowled from one end before play shifts to the other end for the final 30 balls.
- The 30 balls would be delivered as five separate overs, with no bowler able to bowl more than two different overs for the innings.
- If teams do not bowl their overs inside the allocated time period, a member of their lineup is taken off the field for the concluding six balls.
- The timing of a “Mystery Free Hit,” in which a batsman cannot be bowled by the bowler, will be decided by audience decision.
According to Cricket West Indies’ President, Ricky Skerritt, “The 6ixty has come about because of a close collaboration between CPL and CWI which is the way forward. I am really excited about the innovation, excitement and entertainment that it is going to bring to the fans.”
Pete Russell, the CEO of CPL, said, “You’re going to get some people saying ‘this isn’t cricket’ but my view is that cricket is absolutely the most important element of it.
“It’s just about trying to generate excitement and interest. It’s like what’s going on with golf right now – you have to look at things through a different lens sometimes. This is about a totally new audience. We’re very much going after the younger generation.
“We want to make it portable. We want to run it over five days, similar to how rugby sevens is played. You have the ability to take it around the region, rather than us saying we need a player available for five weeks, which increasingly is going to become problematic.
“Our plan is to do four a year, that’s the starting point. Potentially, you’d like to have three in the Caribbean and one elsewhere. We’d like to play one internationally somewhere. If I could take the 6ixty to Vegas, that would be a dream ticket.”
The possibility of staging numerous events at various sites around the Caribbean and overseas is one of the 6ixty’s prospective development objectives.