BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – Chil­dren from across the re­gion will not have to pay a cent to see the West In­dies take on Aus­tralia in a three-match Test se­ries start­ing next month.

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer at Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Chris Dehring on Fri­day re­vealed that all chil­dren will be al­lowed en­try in­to the venues free of cost for the up­com­ing Test match­es at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos, the Grena­da Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Grena­da and Sabi­na Park in Ja­maica.

Speak­ing dur­ing the of­fi­cial launch of the ‘WI Home – Full Ah En­er­gy’ cam­paign launch at Kens­ing­ton Oval, Dehring said the ini­tia­tive was launched as part of CWI’s new pol­i­cy.

“At CWI we be­lieve it is a hu­man right for every child to have ac­cess to Test crick­et. To be able to come to Test crick­et it’s a hu­man right in the Caribbean.

“And so, this year for the first time we are in­sti­tut­ing as a pol­i­cy across the board that every child should be able to come to Test crick­et for free,” Dehring said to rap­tur­ous ap­plause.

“You don’t need a tick­et, it is your right. A tick­et is some­thing for paid pa­trons, not your right, and if it is a right of our chil­dren, then it is the du­ty of our par­ents and our as­so­ci­a­tions and our gov­ern­ments and every adult to en­sure that our chil­dren have ac­cess to that right.”

Mean­while, CWI pres­i­dent Dr Shal­low said he hoped the move would see stands full to ca­pac­i­ty dur­ing the Test se­ries.

“We of course are grate­ful to our new pol­i­cy es­tab­lished by our new CEO that every sin­gle kid across the Caribbean will be able to at­tend our match­es ab­solute­ly free.

“No more do you need a tick­et, you just walk to the sta­di­um and once you are a child you will get free ac­cess to the venues and we are hop­ing with that pol­i­cy, along with this ‘Full Ah En­er­gy’ cam­paign, we are go­ing to have full sta­di­ums across the Caribbean for every match; Test, ODI, T20,” Dr Shal­low said.

“…We are go­ing to be there ral­ly­ing with those play­ers on the field. It’s crit­i­cal that the play­ers have our sup­port, they are putting in the work prepar­ing to rep­re­sent us, but we have to fight and bat­tle with them.”

CMC