BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – Tour­na­ment Di­rec­tor of the ICC Un­der-19 Crick­et World Cup Fawwaz Baksh has thanked the gov­ern­ments of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and To­ba­go for sup­port­ing Crick­et West In­dies in host­ing its fourth glob­al tour­na­ment, through tax waivers and up­grad­ed in­fra­struc­ture among oth­er things.

Speak­ing af­ter the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil’s (ICC) an­nounce­ment on Wednes­day of the host venues and match sched­ule for the ICC Un­der 19 Men’s Crick­et World Cup 2022, he not­ed it would not have been pos­si­ble for the Caribbean to hold the event with­out im­por­tant gov­ern­ment guar­an­tees.

Cit­ing tax waivers, up­grad­ing crick­et in­fra­struc­ture, and col­lab­o­rat­ing with ho­tels to en­sure ac­com­mo­da­tion for all 16 teams, match of­fi­cials and sup­port staff, Baksh re­vealed re­gion­al gov­ern­ments are in­vest­ing sub­stan­tial ef­forts and re­sources in the tour­na­ment which will leave a ma­jor crick­et­ing lega­cy, while boost­ing host economies.

“A num­ber of com­mu­ni­ty clubs and grounds will ben­e­fit from en­hanced crick­et­ing in­fra­struc­ture af­ter this event. Of course, there will al­so be a wel­come fi­nan­cial im­pact in host ter­ri­to­ries, in terms of ho­tel book­ings, trans­porta­tion, cater­ing, and the hir­ing of tem­po­rary staff,” he added.

Baksh al­so laud­ed the vi­sion­ary en­thu­si­asm with which host venues read­i­ly em­braced the U19 event which will be held in the West In­dies in Jan­u­ary-Feb­ru­ary 2022.

“When Crick­et West In­dies voiced its as­pi­ra­tions of host­ing the Un­der-19 Crick­et World Cup, re­gion­al gov­ern­ments were im­me­di­ate­ly re­cep­tive to the idea, es­pe­cial­ly from a de­vel­op­men­tal per­spec­tive. This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for our youth – and fans in gen­er­al – to see young men en­gaged in pos­i­tive, healthy com­pe­ti­tion; many of them en route to be­com­ing fu­ture stars in in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et. It’s a great way to in­spire boys and al­so girls across the West In­dies, show­ing what is pos­si­ble with dis­ci­pline and ded­i­ca­tion,” he said.

The U-19 Men’s Crick­et World Cup, the Tour­na­ment Di­rec­tor point­ed out, will con­tin­ue the West In­dies’ stel­lar tra­di­tion of stag­ing the sport’s pre­mier events.

“Since 2007, when the West In­dies his­tor­i­cal­ly host­ed the Men’s Crick­et World Cup in nine coun­tries, we have dis­tin­guished our­selves in rolling out the red car­pet for world-class crick­et events. We held the men’s and women’s T20 World Cups joint­ly in 2010 and, most re­cent­ly, the women’s T20 World Cup in 2018,” Baksh said. “We are proud of these achieve­ments, and the cadre of home-grown pro­fes­sion­als which we now have in sport-events man­age­ment.”

The ICC U-19 Men’s Crick­et World Cup 2022 takes place in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and To­ba­go, from Jan­u­ary 14 to Feb­ru­ary 5, 2022, fea­tur­ing 16 par­tic­i­pat­ing na­tions in 48 match­es.

Host team, West In­dies, start their ti­tle quest on Jan­u­ary 14 against Aus­tralia at Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um while reign­ing cham­pi­ons, Bangladesh, be­gin their de­fence ver­sus Eng­land on Jan­u­ary 16 at Warn­er Park, St Kitts.

CMC