Caribbean Premier League officials would love to see a player from the ICC Americas region join one of their franchises this season.

That is not all they would love to see, with league officials hoping to expand beyond the West Indies and one day have a team based in the United States or Canada.

Six players from the region who attended an ICC camp in Barbados in December, among them Bermuda quartet Onias Bascome, Christian Burgess, Tre Manders and Delray Rawlins, will be offered training contracts with the CPL at the end of this month.

Those six, along with a host of West Indies Under-19s players, will then have a chance to earn a place with one of the six franchises for the fledgling league’s third season.

“I think it would be fantastic if one or two of these guys could put their hands up and merit the offer of a contract,” Michael Hall, the CPL cricket operations director, said.

Hall feels that in many ways giving players from the Americas region a chance to earn a CPL contract is a win-win all around.

With direct flights from much of the Caribbean to North America’s Eastern Seaboard, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, New York and Toronto are all potential landing spots for an expansion team.

“I’ve heard enough discussion around the CPL table that it’s something they [the owners] are certainly wanting to see if they can get established. Clearly it could work in any significant metropolis that has a big enough population and has a passion for cricket.”

CPL exposure outside of the Caribbean has grown steadily over the past two years, and Hall believes that having a player from Bermuda, Canada or the US involved might then “provide the impetus for an investor, and cricket aficionado who can afford it, to say ‘hey, maybe I would like to have a franchise in the CPL here in this market’.”

This will be the first year that players from the West Indies Under-19s and the ICC Americas have been given the opportunity to earn a contract with the league.

Last year those players that earned training contracts were allowed to sit on the squad bench during games, but not participate. This season they will be available for selection should they earn a full deal.

“Having put in place last year the opportunity for under-19 players from the Caribbean to train with CPL franchises, and given also the fact that West Indies Cricket Board have overall responsibility for the development of the game in the Americas region, it was only natural to extend that opportunity to cricketers outside of the West Indies proper,” Hall said.

“We thought it would be a great opportunity to widen that net and include some of the players from the Americas region as well. Apart from being a great experience for them to go to the camps, to mingle and rub shoulders with some of the established cricketing stars, the ultimate opportunity is for them to earn a contract.”

For the majority of Americas players the CPL will be the highest standard of cricket they have been involved in, and the new system provides a means for those that are good enough to view cricket as a viable career.

“It would be fantastic for me if one or two or more emerge from the Americas group [of players],” Hall said.

Those that do make it will get the chance to play alongside the likes of Jacques Kallis, of South Africa, and Sri Lanka trio Mahela Jayawardena, Tilakaratne Dilshan and Lasith Malinga.

Hall added: “Generally speaking we would love to see the league grow in terms of its appeal and stature, we’d love to see more and more of the bigger name players holding their hands up and saying ‘yes, we want to come and play’.

“Playing in the Caribbean has always been a draw, just in terms of the atmosphere, and surrounds. We want to see it grow in that regard.”