ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Crick­et West In­dies is con­fi­dent the re­gion will lean on its “huge ex­pe­ri­ence” and de­liv­er a suc­cess­ful event when it plays host to next year’s men’s ICC Twen­ty20 World Cup.

Speak­ing in the wake of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil’s (ICC) an­nounce­ment of the venues for the June 4-30 show­piece, CWI chief ex­ec­u­tive John­ny Grave said there were ex­ist­ing part­ner­ships with stake­hold­ers which would be lever­aged in or­der to en­sure a smooth roll­out of the tour­na­ment.

“The West In­dies have got huge ex­pe­ri­ence in host­ing ICC events,” Grave said.

“We’re cur­rent­ly host­ing the Caribbean Pre­mier League which has been an­oth­er suc­cess­ful tour­na­ment in the West In­dies.

“We have very ex­pe­ri­enced op­er­a­tors through­out the re­gion who we work with and part­ner with, and all the stake­hold­ers will be ready to wel­come the world and stage this icon­ic ICC event.

“We’re all tremen­dous­ly ex­cit­ed by the op­por­tu­ni­ty and the plat­form that it gives our re­gion to pro­mote it­self to the world for tourism, for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, as well as hope­ful­ly to give our men’s team a huge home ad­van­tage in go­ing for a record third ti­tle.”

Sev­en coun­tries – Bar­ba­dos, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana, Do­mini­ca, St Lu­cia and St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines – will serve as host venues.

Key to the suc­cess­ful bids by these coun­tries was the in­volve­ment of the re­spec­tive host gov­ern­ments, and Grave said this lev­el of col­lab­o­ra­tion would lead to en­hanced crick­et de­vel­op­ment in these ter­ri­to­ries.

“We are enor­mous­ly grate­ful for the con­tin­ued sup­port we get from the gov­ern­ments of the West In­dies,” he stressed.

“All of them that put for­ward bids have been suc­cess­ful in se­cur­ing match­es, which is great news, and we’re re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to some of the im­prove­ments that those gov­ern­ments have put for­ward in their pro­pos­als to us and the ICC, in terms of en­sur­ing they are ready for what is the pin­na­cle of the men’s game cur­rent­ly, in terms of in­ter­na­tion­al top crick­et.

“It is a huge op­por­tu­ni­ty for the re­gion to use the plat­form of hun­dreds of mil­lions of fans watch­ing the West In­dies, watch­ing our beau­ti­ful coun­tries and our icon­ic venues, and we want every­one in the world to come to the Caribbean and ex­pe­ri­ence what we have to of­fer.”

The tour­na­ment will be the third men’s ICC event be­ing played in the re­gion. In 2007, the Caribbean staged the men’s 2007 World Cup be­fore al­so putting on the men’s T20 World Cup three years lat­er.

In 2018, the re­gion al­so wel­comed the women’s T20 World Cup and last year played host to the men’s ICC Un­der-19 World Cup.

Grave, who joined CWI in 2017, point­ed out that ICC tour­na­ments staged in the Caribbean went be­yond sim­ply crick­et, but al­so pro­vid­ed the ide­al plat­form for the glob­al show­cas­ing of the re­gion’s cul­ture.

“We have seen that unique car­ni­val at­mos­phere when we host­ed the 2018 women’s World T20, where there were big crowds in St Lu­cia and An­tigua when the West In­dies played,” he said.

“And I’m sure when West In­dies play next June there’ll be big crowds at all the venues at which they play.

“We want every host coun­try to show what a wel­com­ing and ex­cit­ing place this is to watch and play crick­et, and it’s re­al­ly im­por­tant that all the fans come out in their mass­es.

“The school chil­dren will be in­vit­ed as part of our com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment pro­gramme so we can show what that car­ni­val crick­et at­mos­phere is to the world.”

West In­dies will host the tour­na­ment in con­junc­tion with the Unit­ed States, with Dal­las, Fort Laud­erdale and New York set to host match­es on the North Amer­i­can leg.

CMC