BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – Par­tic­i­pants who have com­plet­ed a se­ries of work­shops on grounds­man­ship over the past month have hailed the ini­tia­tive.

Over 100 men and women went through the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal ses­sions geared to­wards ed­u­ca­tion and re-ed­u­ca­tion on the rudi­ment of their cru­cial role of pitch prepa­ra­tion and out­field main­te­nance in prepa­ra­tion for the ICC Men’s Twen­ty20 World Cup 2024 West In­dies & Unit­ed States.

For­mer Bar­ba­dos left-arm spin­ner Win­ston Reid, the lead cu­ra­tor for the Bar­ba­dos Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (BCA), said the work­shops were a good idea.

“This is some­thing that should be en­cour­aged, and I know the staff here ben­e­fit­ed tremen­dous­ly,” he said.

“It was a won­der­ful eye-open­er, an ed­u­ca­tion in many ways it was en­light­en­ing and in­ter­ac­tive … and the re­spons­es I got from the oth­ers who par­tic­i­pat­ed, said to me it was clear they too ben­e­fit­ed in a mean­ing­ful way.”

Reid, who is based at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bridgetown, the venue for the fi­nal of the T20 World Cup to be played on Sat­ur­day, June 29, had a huge­ly suc­cess­ful crick­et ca­reer, play­ing over 100 match­es at the se­nior lev­el for Bar­ba­dos.

He joined the staff at the his­toric venue 19 years ago ahead of the ICC Men’s (50 overs) Crick­et World Cup 2007 and has su­per­vised the work at the icon­ic ground over that time.

“The rea­son be­hind the work­shop was to im­prove in every way we can and to do bet­ter at our jobs,” Reid said.

“We are gear­ing up to­wards the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, which will be the biggest event we have ever host­ed. We will be stag­ing the fi­nal at this mag­nif­i­cent venue, so we want to make sure every­one is ful­ly equipped.”

He said: “Not on­ly for Kens­ing­ton but for cu­ra­tor­ship at all the oth­er venues around the is­land and the re­gion. We want to see bet­ter pitch­es and fields and play­ing con­di­tions for our play­ers to show their skills and to en­ter­tain the fans in the stands.

“So, this was a very time­ly work­shop se­ries, which au­gurs well for the game in the West In­dies go­ing for­ward.”

Six ter­ri­to­ries in the Caribbean will host match­es in the ninth edi­tion of the T20 World Cup, which will be played from June 1 to 29.

The Caribbean, which host­ed the event 14 years ago, will hold match­es at Kens­ing­ton Oval, Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground in An­tigua, Na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um in Guyana, Daren Sam­my Crick­et Ground in St Lu­cia, Arnos Vale Sports Com­plex in St Vin­cent, and Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Trinidad.

The event will be the largest in the tour­na­ment’s his­to­ry with 20 in­ter­na­tion­al teams play­ing 55 match­es across nine lo­ca­tions.

It is the first time that the Unit­ed States will host match­es at a T20 World Cup, with 16 first-round con­tests split be­tween the Nas­sau Coun­ty In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um a lit­tle out­side the city of New York, Grand Prairie Crick­et Sta­di­um in the city of Dal­las in the state of Texas, and Broward Coun­ty Sta­di­um in the city of Lauder­hill in the state of Flori­da.

CWI man­ag­er of crick­et op­er­a­tions and head of crick­et for the T20 World Cup, Roland Hold­er said the se­ries was craft­ed by the or­gan­is­ers and de­signed to up-skill ex­ist­ing cu­ra­tors across the Caribbean by ex­pos­ing them to in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices for pitch prepa­ra­tion and ap­plic­a­ble main­te­nance.

The for­mer Bar­ba­dos cap­tain and West In­dies bats­man said the work­shops were al­so de­signed to si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ex­pand the cadre of cu­ra­tors in the Caribbean by iden­ti­fy­ing new tal­ent with the ap­pro­pri­ate com­bi­na­tion of the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge and prac­ti­cal ex­po­sure, to lend fur­ther ex­per­tise to match venues to de­liv­er a world-class event in June.

A CWI Cu­ra­tors’ Man­u­al was al­so pro­duced in the lead-up to the work­shop and will be dis­sem­i­nat­ed to the cu­ra­tors to help them in their work.

CMC