The largest-ever T20 World Cup con­clud­ed suc­cess­ful­ly af­ter a month of in­tense com­pe­ti­tion. As the sec­ond-most watched sport­ing event, on­ly be­hind the FI­FA World Cup, it stands out among the big three: the FI­FA World Cup, the Crick­et World Cup, and the Olympics. No­tably, the Caribbean is like­ly to host on­ly the Crick­et World Cup. This edi­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly in­trigu­ing, span­ning nine venues in six coun­tries, five is­lands, and two con­ti­nents.

Pre-com­pe­ti­tion up­grades re­vi­talised Caribbean fa­cil­i­ties, in­clud­ing St Vin­cent’s Arnos Vale sta­di­um, which host­ed in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et for the first time in 12 years. The ren­o­va­tions spurred lo­cal em­ploy­ment and sol­id gov­ern­ment in­vest­ments. In the USA, up­grades were made to sta­di­ums in Dal­las and Lauder­hill, and a 34,000-seat tem­po­rary sta­di­um was con­struct­ed in Long Is­land’s Eisen­how­er Park, which was closed to the pub­lic for the World Cup.

The USA’s ex­per­i­ment with World Cup Crick­et, sim­i­lar to the 1994 FI­FA World Cup, lever­aged the coun­try’s di­verse eth­nic groups. The tour­na­ment be­gan with a sold-out USA vs Cana­da match in Dal­las. The trend con­tin­ued with Nepal vs the Nether­lands, In­dia vs. Pak­istan and In­dia vs USA match­es in New York. Bangladeshi sup­port­ers dom­i­nat­ed the 90 per cent spec­ta­tor turnout for the Bangladesh vs South Africa match. The at­mos­phere at these grounds was elec­tri­fy­ing, and lo­cal ven­dors ben­e­fit­ed mas­sive­ly from the many spec­ta­tors who flew in world­wide.

While the USA was able to sup­port the move­ment of these large num­bers of peo­ple, the Caribbean was not. Nepalese sup­port­ers fol­lowed their team to St Vin­cent, and the In­di­an, Eng­lish, and South African sup­port­ers who could get flights to the Caribbean came as well. Al­though In­dia vs Aus­tralia in St Lu­cia, was sold out, there was on­ly 40 per cent ca­pac­i­ty at the ground be­cause of poor air­lift. The semi­fi­nal in Guyana was 50 per cent full de­spite be­ing sold out for the same rea­son. Even the fi­nal was in jeop­ardy of not be­ing a ca­pac­i­ty crowd un­til lo­cal pa­trons bought re­turn tick­ets at the last minute. Those who trav­elled to these coun­tries filled every pos­si­ble ac­com­mo­da­tion type and spent lav­ish­ly on lo­cal en­ter­pris­es. More im­por­tant­ly, most af­flu­ent first-timers to the re­gion will like­ly re­turn for hol­i­days or crick­et. But on­ly to the coun­tries that they are now fa­mil­iar with. The op­por­tu­ni­ties missed by Ja­maica, the coun­try with the largest air­lift and most ho­tel rooms in the re­gion, to at­tract a new grow­ing set of po­ten­tial vis­i­tors can on­ly be imag­ined, es­pe­cial­ly in Kingston, where lo­cal ac­com­mo­da­tion and ven­dors would have di­rect­ly ben­e­fit­ed.

The match­es were high­ly com­pet­i­tive de­spite a few chal­leng­ing pitch­es with vari­able, un­pre­dictable bounce and the ball pop­ping up or keep­ing low, such as in New York and one or two in the Caribbean. The games were close, even if not high-scor­ing, a re­fresh­ing change from the In­di­an Pre­mier League, with their scores of 200 and be­yond. Here, bowlers had a fair chance, and bats­men had to show some form of ad­just­ment and skill. Noth­ing is wrong with pitch­es that turn, es­pe­cial­ly when the con­di­tions are the same for both teams dur­ing the match. Fi­nal­ist South Africa re­mained un­beat­en un­til the last game, nar­row­ly win­ning against Nepal by one run, Bangladesh by four runs, and the Nether­lands by four wick­ets with sev­en balls to spare, keep­ing each match ex­cit­ing un­til the fi­nal ball. In the semi­fi­nal, In­dia de­fend­ed a low to­tal against Eng­land, as they had against Pak­istan and the USA. The thrilling fi­nal went to the last over. This was one of the best World Cups from an en­ter­tain­ment and ex­cite­ment stand­point.

The tour­na­ment’s lega­cy promis­es a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact. All venues are now world-class, with the Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos among the best glob­al­ly. The re­gion’s ca­pac­i­ty to host crick­et has im­proved, and ex­po­sure to new spec­ta­tors has cre­at­ed new op­por­tu­ni­ties. Most coun­tries like­ly saw re­turns on their in­vest­ments. I watched the fi­nal’s last two overs with a high-rank­ing Bar­ba­di­an of­fi­cial, who whis­pered that they hoped for an In­di­an vic­to­ry, an­tic­i­pat­ing that the size­able In­di­an con­tin­gent would boost the coun­try’s GDP that night with their spend­ing!

Coun­tries like Ja­maica missed the chance to at­tract po­ten­tial tourists and in­vestors from out­side tra­di­tion­al mar­kets. While the game ex­pands and mon­ey flows in, some coun­tries are re­treat­ing from the crick­et­ing mar­ket [fi­nan­cial]. In Ja­maica, a high-lev­el com­mit­tee de­cid­ed it wasn’t worth the ef­fort, a stance that con­trast­ed sharply with the heavy in­vest­ments made by the US and oth­er Caribbean na­tions. Al­though we were as­sured it was a con­sid­ered de­ci­sion, it’s worth re­flect­ing on whose rea­son­ing was sound! From a com­pe­ti­tion per­spec­tive, how­ev­er, the tour­na­ment was fan­tas­tic.

Dr Ak­shai Mans­ingh is Dean, Fac­ul­ty of Sport, The UWI. He can be reached at ak­shai.mans­ingh@uwi.edu