Above: Gerard Butler with Tallawahs coach Paul Nixon and Captain Chris Gayle at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Hollywood actor Gerard Butler has officially joined his new Jamaica Tallawahs cricket team as they compete in the CPL semifinals in Trinidad this weekend.

Butler was revealed to have purchased an equity stake in the team earlier this week.

“Absolutely [it is a long term commitment],” he said. “I did not do this just to be in it for a couple of weeks.  I did it because I hope this new league is a long-term league and that it keeps going and keeps building so it is an investment you hope will build, but also it is an excuse to come out here [to the Caribbean], to a place I love.”
Butler also said there would be a “bit of a rivalry” with fellow actor Mark Wahlberg, who purchased an equity stake in the competing Barbados Tridents at the end of July.

“Absolutely,” he said. “At one point we were going to invest in the same team and then we thought it would be better to keep it separate – ‘You take Barbados and I will go with Jamaica.’

Butler attended the match between the Guyana Amazon Warriors and the Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel in Port of Spain on Thursday night.

“I see the excitement — I ask people ‘what was it like before?’ and they say ‘It was always fun but now it is a really fun,'” he said. “It is much bigger, it is more exciting, it is just more. It feels like it is becoming the European Champions League of the Caribbean. I think Hollywood will take more of an interest in this and hopefully around the world.”

Butler said he had personally visited Jamaica “a lot” and had a “special affection for that place.”
“And they have Chris Gayle, so I thought that would be the one to get involved with,” he said.

The CPL runs through Saturday, with the final at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain on Saturday.