Replacing the regional competition
West Indian domestic Twenty20 had been played since 2006 as the Caribbean Twenty20, a tournament between the territorial sides that fed the Test team. It drew small crowds and no money. In 2013 the West Indies Cricket Board replaced it with a franchise league: six privately owned teams, an overseas quota, a title sponsor in the drinks brand Limacol, and a schedule built around the Caribbean summer.
The six were Antigua Hawksbills, Barbados Tridents, Guyana Amazon Warriors, Jamaica Tallawahs, St Lucia Zouks and Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel. Each played seven group matches, which meant an uneven fixture list, and the top four went into semi-finals. Twenty-one group matches were played across six islands and the knockout stage at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain.
The group stage
Guyana Amazon Warriors and Jamaica Tallawahs finished on five wins from seven, Barbados on four, and the Red Steel on three, which was enough for fourth. St Lucia Zouks and Antigua Hawksbills won two each.
The most remarkable single performance came at Kensington Oval on 3 August, where Shakib Al Hasan took 6 for 6 and the Red Steel were bowled out for 52 in 12.5 overs. Barbados knocked the runs off in eight. Fidel Edwards took 5 for 22 in another match. Shoaib Malik of Barbados made the most runs in the season with 272, a figure that says as much about the pitches and the length of the tournament as about the batting.
Port of Spain
Guyana beat the Red Steel in the first semi-final, dismissing the home side for 103 and chasing it in 16.2 overs, Tillakaratne Dilshan taking the award. Jamaica beat Barbados in the second, chasing 149 with nine balls left, Kumar Sangakkara taking the award.
The final, on 24 August, was a low-scoring match. Guyana made 128 for 5. Jamaica reached 129 for 3 in 17.3 overs, and Chris Gayle, who had been the tournament's marquee signing, took the match award. Krishmar Santokie of the losing side was named player of the tournament for his 16 wickets, the most of anyone.
What it established
The competition drew a reported 221,267 spectators across twenty-four matches, which by West Indian domestic standards was a transformation. It also established two patterns that outlasted the season. The first was Guyana Amazon Warriors reaching finals and losing them, which they would do six more times over the following twelve years. The second was the tournament's habit of moving: no ground held more than seven matches, and every subsequent season would rearrange the map again.