Four of Bermuda’s most promising cricketers will compete with eight other Associate players for rookie contracts at each of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) teams.

Delray Rawlins, Onias Bascome, Tre Manders and Christian Burgess will join five Canadians and three players from the United States in contesting for six CPL contracts at a training camp in Barbados from December 14 to 21.

Antigua Hawksbills, Barbados Tridents, Guyana Amazon Warriors, Jamaica Tallawahs, St Lucia Zouks, and Trinidad and Tobago will each include a player under the age of 23 from the Americas region in their squads for next season as part of the ICC’s Talent Development Programme.

All four Bermudians selected for the high performance training camp represented the Island at last month’s Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division Three tournament in Malaysia, where Bermuda suffered relegation, winning just one of their six matches.

Burgess, 20, the St George’s wicketkeeper-batsman, and Rawlins, 17, the Bailey’s Bay left-arm spinner, offered shafts of light amid the gloom of Bermuda’s ill-fated Malaysia tour.

Bascome and Manders, who are both 19, have also showed portions of promise for Bermuda and their domestic clubs, St George’s and Bay, in recent years.

Kamau Leverock, 20, was also invited to attend the camp, which will include three Twenty20 matches and two 50-over games, but was not able to attend because of school commitments in England.

Neil Speight, the Bermuda Cricket Board chief executive, said that the prospect of rubbing shoulders with star performers such as Chris Gayle, of the Tallawahs, Darren Sammy, of the Zouks, and Shoaib Malik, of the Tridents, should be a huge incentive for the foursome.

It was Speight who approached Whycliffe “Dave” Cameron, the president of the West Indies Cricket Board, about creating an avenue for players from the Americas region to play in the CPL.

“We’re at a stage where we seem to have acceptance in the 2015 CPL, with six rookies from the Americas region to be given an exciting opportunity,” Speight said.

“It will be a fantastic experience for the players who are picked and it’s great to know that there is a pathway for Bermudian players to be part of the CPL set-up, training and playing alongside some top players.

“That’s a massive incentive for those four players who have been selected for the high-performance training camp.”

Speight said he was hopeful that more than one of Bermuda’s quartet could snare a CPL contract.

“We have some really talented players at this camp and it’s up to them how hard they’re prepared to work on their game in order to continue to improve,” he said.

“The selection process was based on each players’ performances at the international level.”

Lloyd Fray, the Bermuda Cricket Board president, added: “I’m very proud to see that the Bermuda youth programme is continuing to produce international-quality players that are being offered performance opportunities by the ICC.

“The BCB is providing funding so that no player will have to pay the $800 player participation fee levied by the ICC for this camp.

“This has been the brainchild of BCB chief executive Neil Speight and he has put in significant work over the last 18 months to bring this [CPL] dream to within reach of our most promising players.”

The CPL is a Twenty20 tournament and was created in 2013, replacing the Caribbean Twenty20. Tallawahs won the maiden competition.

Each franchise has 15 contracted players, including a maximum of four international players and four players under the age of 23.

The six teams each have one local and one international franchise player.