Trinbago retired Dwayne Bravo’s No. 47, and no CPL player had ever had that done before
The Knight Riders took a shirt number out of circulation for the first time in the league’s history. Bravo is still their head coach.
Aug 30, 2026
No cricketer had ever had a shirt number taken out of circulation in the Caribbean Premier League. At Queen’s Park Oval on Saturday, 29 August, Trinbago Knight Riders retired Dwayne Bravo’s No. 47, and now one has.
Bravo watched it happen from the middle of the ground with his family around him, and Knight Riders Group chief executive Venky Mysore held the shirt up. Mysore said afterwards that taking the number out of use was the franchise’s way of keeping Bravo permanently attached to the club. Nicholas Pooran and Sunil Narine both spoke about what he had meant to younger players coming through in Trinidad.
The numbers behind the number
Bravo played 107 CPL matches and took 129 wickets at an economy rate of 8.74. When he stopped playing in 2024 that made him the leading wicket-taker in the competition’s history. He is third on that list now, because Narine and Imran Tahir kept going and went past him, which is the sort of overtaking Bravo would probably enjoy.
The wider T20 record is the one that still looks unreal. 631 wickets in 582 matches, across every league that would have him, and 322 of those came in the last four overs of an innings. No bowler in T20 history has taken more wickets in that phase of an innings.
Indian audiences know the rest of it. 154 of his 183 IPL wickets came for Chennai Super Kings, where he spent most of a decade bowling the 19th over and singing at trophy parades.
Four titles in the shirt, one in the dugout
Trinbago have won five CPL titles and Bravo has been there for all of them. The first came in 2015, when the franchise was still called Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel. Then 2017 and 2018 back to back, then 2020, when they went through the league and the playoffs without losing a match, which no CPL side had managed before or has managed since.
The fifth came last year, and he was not playing in it. Bravo took over as head coach and TKR beat Guyana Amazon Warriors by three wickets in the final. He is still in the job this season, which makes for a slightly odd ceremony: the man having his shirt retired was on the team sheet as the coach an hour later.
Trinbago are the most successful franchise in the tournament, ahead of Jamaica Tallawahs on three and Barbados Tridents on two. You can see the full CPL winners list for how lopsided that has become.
Why a jersey retirement is unusual here
Retiring numbers is a North American habit that cricket has mostly ignored. Franchise T20 squads turn over hard every year, players move between leagues, and a number that means something at one club means nothing at the next. Bravo wore 47 at plenty of other clubs, and none of them are going to stop issuing it.
Which is why doing it at all says something about how TKR see the last decade. The franchise had not won the competition before 2015. They have five trophies now, and four of them have his bowling somewhere in the last two overs.
The rest of the evening did not go their way. TKR made 180 and Jamaica Kingsmen were seven runs ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern par score when the rain ended it, which meant a defeat on a night the club had set aside for a celebration. Bravo has seen worse.