The Women's Caribbean Premier League opens in Barbados with a fourth team added

Jamaica Empress join the competition for its 2026 season, the first time the Women's Caribbean Premier League has expanded since it began in 2022

The tournament starts at the Kensington Oval with Barbados Royals against Trinbago Knight Riders, the first of eight matches that will all be played on the same ground.

The competition runs to 17 September. Jamaica Empress make their debut against Guyana Amazon Warriors on the second day.

Three teams have contested every previous edition. A fourth changes both the format and the shape of the tournament.

What the fourth team changes

Under the new structure each side plays the other three once in the league stage, which gives every team three group games rather than the repeated meetings a three-team competition forces.

That produces a play-off between the second and third-placed sides on 16 September, with the final the following day. Only the team that tops the group avoids the extra match.

Eight matches across thirteen days is a short window, and keeping everything at one venue removes the inter-island travel that shapes the men's competition.

It also means three group games decide who makes the play-off, so a single defeat carries far more weight than it would in a longer league.

The schedule is front-loaded and then pauses. After the opening two days there is a three-day gap before Trinbago Knight Riders meet Jamaica Empress on 10 September, and the remaining league games are packed into the twelfth and thirteenth, with two matches on the first of those.

Why it is being expanded now

"We are creating a platform where women can be celebrated, communities can come together, and young girls can see clear pathways to success in sport and beyond," said Pete Russell, the WCPL's chief executive.

The competition has been the most visible professional pathway in West Indies women's cricket since its launch, and a fourth franchise adds a full squad's worth of contracts to it.

Jamaica had no franchise of its own in the women's competition until now, despite the men's tournament having carried a Jamaican side throughout.

The opening fixture

Barbados Royals and Trinbago Knight Riders are two of the three teams that have been in the competition since it began, and they meet in the opening match at the Kensington Oval.

Both squads draw heavily on West Indies internationals supplemented by overseas players, and with only three group games each there is very little margin for a slow start.

Barbados also have the advantage of playing every match of the tournament at home, which in a competition this compressed is not a small thing.

How it fits the Caribbean season

The women's tournament runs alongside the closing stages of the men's Caribbean Premier League, which is also at the Kensington Oval this weekend for Barbados Royals against Trinbago Knight Riders.

Sharing a venue and a broadcast window with the men's competition has been the model since the WCPL began, and the expanded format keeps it. The arrangement gives the women's matches an audience already assembled for the men's, which is the practical argument for staging them together.

Guyana Amazon Warriors, who beat Jamaica Kingsmen by eight wickets in their most recent men's fixture, field teams in both.

The Women's Caribbean Premier League runs from 5 to 17 September at the Kensington Oval, with Jamaica Empress joining as a fourth team.

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