{"id":29876,"date":"2026-05-15T16:21:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=29876"},"modified":"2026-05-15T16:23:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:23:53","slug":"griffith-explains-motie-departure-as-warriors-begin-new-cpl-draft-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/griffith-explains-motie-departure-as-warriors-begin-new-cpl-draft-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Griffith explains\u00a0Motie\u00a0departure as Warriors begin new CPL draft cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n\n<p>-by Tyriq Walters <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Guyana Amazon Warriors assistant coach Ryan Griffith has clarified the reasons behind\u00a0Gudakesh Motie\u2019s\u00a0departure from the franchise, explaining that the start of a new Caribbean Premier League draft cycle meant no player could be retained automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Warriors recently announced their locally drafted players for the 2026 CPL season, but the absence of&nbsp;Motie&nbsp;from the Guyanese franchise raised questions among supporters, especially given his consistent performances over recent seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking exclusively with NCN Sport, Griffith explained that all players entered the draft pool under the league\u2019s new cycle regulations, leaving&nbsp;the Warriors&nbsp;vulnerable&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a new cycle and every player were in the pool so there were no players that we could have retain,\u201d Griffith explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He added that the Warriors were unable to secure&nbsp;Motie&nbsp;because the franchise did not hold the&nbsp;opening selection in the draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGudakesh&nbsp;Motie&nbsp;have been snuck up at the highest bid, we didn\u2019t had the first pick so that team who had the first pick they had the opportunity to pick&nbsp;Gudakesh&nbsp;Motie,\u201d Griffith stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Motie&nbsp;has since moved to the Barbados Tridents, while all-rounder&nbsp;Kemo&nbsp;Paul has joined the Jamaica&nbsp;Kingsmen&nbsp;as Jamaica returns to the CPL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Griffith also revealed that the Warriors approached the draft with the intention of restructuring the squad after losing several players from the previous cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe had to structure the team\u2026 we definitely would have loss some players and we were looking to fill some gaps in terms of the top of the order and then we still have at the&nbsp;bottom of the order,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the departures, Griffith expressed confidence in the youthful Guyanese group selected, noting that local players continue to perform strongly across regional competitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The full list of drafted players are&nbsp;Shimron Hetmyer,&nbsp;Romario&nbsp;Shepherd,&nbsp;Shai&nbsp;Hope, Shamar Joseph,&nbsp;Khary&nbsp;Pierre, Ronaldo&nbsp;Alimohamed,&nbsp;Veerasammy&nbsp;Permaul, Jonathan van Lange,&nbsp;Mavendra&nbsp;Dindyal, Isai Thorne, Matthew&nbsp;Nandu and Quentin Sampson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>-by Tyriq Walters Guyana Amazon Warriors assistant coach Ryan Griffith has clarified the reasons behind\u00a0Gudakesh Motie\u2019s\u00a0departure from the franchise, explaining that the start of a new Caribbean Premier League draft&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[488,1010,370,412,405],"class_list":["post-29876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-488","tag-cpl","tag-guyana","tag-ncn-guyana","tag-ncn-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29876"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29879,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29876\/revisions\/29879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}