BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – The Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex will host four match­es when the West In­dies Un­der-19 team launch­es its 2022 ICC Un­der-19 World Cup bid. The Caribbean team will clash against three-time cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia, af­ter be­ing in­stalled in a group along­side Sri Lan­ka and Scot­land.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of­fi­cial­ly opened the sport­ing fa­cil­i­ty on March 24, 2019. The Prime Min­is­ter in his fea­ture ad­dress called on par­ents and guardians to re­gard the fa­cil­i­ty, lo­cat­ed at Cor­ner Sa­van­nah Ter­race #1 and Diego Mar­tin Main Road, as one built for the ben­e­fit of their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren.

The Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do, the fa­mous Queen's Park Crick­et Club are the oth­er venues in T&T that will host match­es.

The 48-match itin­er­ary, an­nounced Wednes­day by the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil, sees 2016 cham­pi­ons West In­dies in the cur­tain-rais­er on Jan­u­ary 14 at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um – one of ten host venues across four coun­tries for the tour­na­ment which runs un­til Feb­ru­ary 5.

Six­teen teams will com­pete in four groups al­so spread across venues in Trinidad and To­ba­go, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and St Kitts and Nevis.

Six­teen warm-up match­es will be con­test­ed from Jan­u­ary 9-12 in St Kitts and Nevis and Guyana, while Coolidge Crick­et Ground in An­tigua will host one se­mi-fi­nal on Feb­ru­ary 2, with the Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground, al­so in An­tigua, stag­ing the oth­er se­mi-fi­nal on Feb­ru­ary 1 and the fi­nal four days lat­er.

“CWI is look­ing for­ward to host­ing this im­por­tant glob­al U-19 crick­et event, which is just around the cor­ner, in Jan­u­ary,” said Crick­et West In­dies pres­i­dent, Ricky Sker­ritt.

“In part­ner­ship with host ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards, crick­et clubs, and Min­istries of Sports, we have been hard at work prepar­ing for this event over the past sev­er­al months.

“How­ev­er, amid so many COVID-re­lat­ed chal­lenges, it has not been easy to fi­nalise the venues and to work out all the re­lat­ed lo­gis­tics.”

He con­tin­ued: “At the same time, our U19 head coach, Floyd Reifer, and his coach­ing staff have been busy prepar­ing our team for com­pe­ti­tion, us­ing in­no­v­a­tive meth­ods to keep them ac­tive even while they were re­strict­ed from trav­el.

“West In­dies has a proud Un­der-19 crick­et his­to­ry, with sev­er­al bright tal­ents blos­som­ing in­to in­ter­na­tion­al stars over the years. We, there­fore, ex­pect our cur­rent team of un­der-19 play­ers to do us proud in the 2022 tour­na­ment.

“I am al­so con­fi­dent that our vis­i­tors will ex­pe­ri­ence the best of our world-fa­mous Caribbean cul­ture and hos­pi­tal­i­ty in An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Guyana, St. Kitts & Nevis, and Trinidad & To­ba­go.”

Reign­ing cham­pi­ons Bangladesh has been in­stalled in Group A with Eng­land, Cana­da and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates while tra­di­tion­al pow­er­hous­es In­dia is along­side Ire­land, South Africa and Ugan­da in Group B.

Afghanistan, Pak­istan, Papua New Guinea and Zim­bab­we com­prise Group C.

The Plate stage of the tour­na­ment will be played in Trinidad and To­ba­go from Jan­u­ary 25-31, with the sec­ond round Su­per League set for An­tigua and Bar­bu­da from Jan­u­ary 26.

Warn­er Park and Cona­ree in St Kitts, along with the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um, Queen’s Park Oval and the Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex in Trinidad, will al­so stage tour­na­ment games.

Sandy Point in St Kitts and Ever­est in Guyana will host warm-up match­es on­ly.

ICC’s head of events, Chris Tet­ley, said there was great an­tic­i­pa­tion sur­round­ing the tour­na­ment.

“So many of the best play­ers have com­pet­ed at the U-19 Men’s Crick­et World Cup in­clud­ing Vi­rat Kohli, Babar Azam, Joe Root and Shim­ron Het­my­er and we are look­ing for­ward to the 2022 edi­tion to see who emerges as the fu­ture stars,” he said.

“We are de­light­ed that the West In­dies will be host­ing this event and we wish all the teams the very best in their prepa­ra­tions for the tour­na­ment and to Crick­et West In­dies in or­gan­is­ing the event.”

The tour­na­ment is the first-ever ICC Un­der-19 be­ing staged in the Caribbean.

ITIN­ER­ARY ICC 2022 Un­der-19 World Cup

SCHED­ULE

Jan­u­ary 14:

West In­dies v Aus­tralia – Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um

Sri Lan­ka v Scot­land – Ever­est Crick­et Club

Jan­u­ary 15:

Cana­da v UAE – Cona­ree Crick­et Cen­tre

In­dia v South Africa – Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um

Ire­land v Ugan­da – Ever­est Crick­et Club

Pak­istan v PNG – Queens Park Oval

Jan­u­ary 16:

Bangladesh v Eng­land – Warn­er Park Crick­et Sta­di­um

Afghanistan v Zim­bab­we – Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex

Jan­u­ary 17:

West In­dies v Scot­land – Warn­er Park Crick­et Sta­di­um

Aus­tralia v Sri Lan­ka – Cona­ree Crick­et Cen­tre

Jan­u­ary 18:

Eng­land v Cana­da – Warn­er Park Crick­et Sta­di­um

South Africa v Ugan­da – Queen's Park Oval

Afghanistan v PNG – Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex

Jan­u­ary 19:

Aus­tralia v Scot­land – Cona­ree Crick­et Cen­tre

In­dia v Ire­land – Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my

Jan­u­ary 20:

Eng­land v UAE – Warn­er Park Crick­et Sta­di­um

Bangladesh v Cana­da – Cona­ree Crick­et Cen­tre

Pak­istan v Afghanistan – Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my

Zim­bab­we v PNG – Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plexo

Jan­u­ary 21:

West In­dies v Sri Lan­ka – Cona­ree Crick­et Cen­tre

South Africa v Ire­land – Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my

Jan­u­ary 22:

Bangladesh v UAE – Warn­er Park Crick­et Sta­di­um

In­dia v Ugan­da – Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my

Pak­istan v Zim­bab­we – Queen's Park Oval

Jan. 25 to Feb. 4:

Plate and Su­per League – Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground,

Coolidge Crick­et Ground, Bri­an Lara, Sta­di­um, Queen's Park Oval,

Diego Mar­tin Sport­ing Com­plex

Feb­ru­ary 1:

1st Se­mi-Fi­nal – Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground

Feb­ru­ary 2:

2nd Se­mi-Fi­nal – Coolidge Crick­et Ground

Feb­ru­ary 5:

Fi­nal – Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground

(CMC)