There's life after Bravo for St Kitts & Nevis Patriots

With two titles in the past two years in the Caribbean - the 2021 CPL and the 2022 6IXTY - St Kitts & Nevis Patriots emerged as a force that could challenge serial CPL winners Trinbago Knight Riders. But with Dwayne Bravo, who had led them to that CPL title, now returning to his home franchise for this season - and Chris Gayle not in action - they are on a mission to rebuild the side with the same-old vision of winning titles.

Ambati Rayudu, who recently retired from international cricket, has signed with Patriots as their marquee player, replacing South African allrounder Tristan Stubbs. Rayudu brings with him the experience of having played over 100 IPL games and won six IPL titles - the most, along with Rohit Sharma. He will join Malolan Rangarajan, the former assistant coach at Patriots who has now been promoted to head coach, replacing Simon Helmot. This is Malolan's first stint as head coach in a T20 league but having already worked with the franchise for three years as a strategist and assistant coach, he has earned the trust of the Patriots players and the rest of the staff. He has also been part of Royal Challengers Bangalore's support staff in the IPL.

In the lead-up to the 2021 CPL, allrounder Dominic Drakes was injured and around the same time, he had to deal with the passing of someone close to him. But Malolan and Co sat down with Drakes and created a "family-like" team environment that enabled honest conversations. He ended up hitting the winning runs in the final to give Patriots their first title.

Drakes, now Patriots' main allrounder in the absence of Bravo, counts such a team environment as one of the franchise's strengths as they prepare for the new season starting August 17.

"Normally when you change a head coach, it can be a bit challenging, in terms of getting the players together," Drakes tells ESPNcricinfo. "But Malo was here before as the assistant coach when we won, and it doesn't feel like a big change. He was always there for the players and feels like family, so I don't think it makes a big difference as players are used to working with him.

"In all the teams, even up to date, I don't think I've ever been in an environment that has been so relaxed like St Kitts. Everyone felt comfortable and that they were part of something bigger than themselves. We don't have too many superstars in the dressing room, which is good. Anyone can have a chat with anyone at any time. It's always good to have a situation where you feel welcome."

Having worked on his fitness and having played franchise cricket all around the world, including for Birmingham Bears last month in the T20 Blast in the UK, Drakes backs himself to bowl the tough overs, this time without Bravo.

"The body is feeling good. It's just old age (laughs), but the body feels very good at this point," says Drakes, who missed last year's CPL due to injury. "Bravo had a very strong influence on us and on me, for sure. He helped me a lot and passed on a lot of knowledge, so looking forward to using it on my own this year. I'm not putting pressure on myself. I think the last I played with Bravo was at the T10 and I haven't played a lot of cricket [along with him] in the last 18 months.

"Playing in the UK at the Blast was a massive help. It was a different world. When you're playing in the CPL, you don't have as much pressure as an overseas pro. They always look forward to the overseas pro to do well. It gives you the mentality to be there in the pressure situation, so you can take that calmness and experience going into international cricket and local franchise cricket."

Local fast bowler Oshane Thomas, who was traded in from Barbados Royals, and Afghanistan wristspinner Izharulhaq Naveed, who was signed at the draft, are among the new faces in the Patriots side for this season's CPL. Thomas is fit again and is back to hitting speeds north of 145kph while Naveed has a deceptively quick wrong'un in his repertoire, a skill that had caught Malolan's attention when Naveed was a net bowler at RCB in the IPL. Malolan said that the squad was constructed with a sharp focus on the batting-friendly conditions at Warner Park, where Patriots will play four of their ten league matches.

"Warner Park is nothing like Chinnaswamy, if you ask me," Malolan says. "The scores can be quite identical, higher altitude so on and so forth…But Warner Park under lights is a batting paradise and the wind plays a huge, huge factor. Day games feel like you're playing at one venue and night games feel like you're playing in a different venue.

"Most of players we have retained and [those who have] come in like Oshane have some sort of experience playing at Warner Park. We have enough experience to understand what the conditions are there - how early you go into bowling death at Warner Park, which type of bowler to attack, how to hit into the wind and against it, small details like that. If you hit high into the air, you're gone, you're better off hitting flat into the wind."

Patriots had a forgettable CPL last year, when they finished second from last in the six-team league. After that season, the team management cast their scouting nets wider and set up a first-of-a kind player development camp in the CPL in April this year. Allrounder Kofi James, who had also impressed in a local Antigua T20 tournament, is among the products of Patriots' extensive scouting.

"St Kitts is not a big island," TA Adhishwar, the director of cricket at Patriots, says. "If you see the kind of diversity in the West Indies national team, there are a lot of players from Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica. These three are the bigger islands which have a clear cricketing structure in place whereas St Kitts doesn't have as much.

"In the second-third year of a cycle, it's difficult to get quality talent through a common recruitment process - be it an IPL auction or a CPL draft. The only way we can identify new talent was to go through guys who are undrafted and paying attention from grassroots cricket upwards. So we did a lot of talent scouting right from the Under-16s in the Caribbean to going up to senior cricketers. In a league where there are three IPL teams, for a non-IPL team to be the first to conduct a talent scouting camp and to have a development squad in the CPL, full marks to our owner Mahesh [Ramani] and our management."

For both Adhishwar and Malolan, the off-field activities and team bonding are as important as the on-field action.

"It's not just about creating facilities on the field, it's also about creating that environment off the field," Malolan says. "Dominic was one of those cricketers with whom I was able to connect, funnily off the field regarding on-field activities. He wanted to talk more about his bowling, then we met over pizza. Me, him, and Joshua Da Silva have this pizza dinner usually during the CPL. Things like that are going to be very important and I don't think it's any different to someone who has a nine-to-six job, and someone who is not comfortable there will put in their papers."

With Sherfane Rutherford, fresh from winning the Global T20 Canada, and with Evin Lewis coming into the CPL on the back of making the knockouts of the Zimbabwe Afro T10 league, Drakes believes that Patriots can do the three-peat this CPL.

"I think we still see ourselves as champions," Drakes says. "Winning two out of three cups in the last two years, I think anyone would take that. We didn't have a really good showing last year [in the CPL], but if anything, we always have the belief to bounce back. Evin is in good form, Rutherford is in good form, and I think overall we're in a good space to challenge for the title once again."

Having drifted away from West Indies' T20I radar, Drakes, Lewis and Rutherford all have a point to prove. Impactful performances in the CPL could potentially put the trio back in West Indies' plans ahead of a home T20 World Cup next year. They have everything to play for in this CPL.