KINGSTON, Ja­maica – Sports Min­is­ter Olivia Grange said gov­ern­ment opt­ed to pri­ori­tise grass­roots fund­ing over in­vest­ing in next year’s Twen­ty20 World Cup, but said it was “not an easy de­ci­sion” to pass up on host­ing games in the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil show­piece.

Ja­maica was the no­table ab­sence from the list of sev­en host venues an­nounced by the ICC ear­li­er this week, with the likes of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, Guyana, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and To­ba­go, all sub­mit­ting suc­cess­ful bids.

How­ev­er, Grange said af­ter ex­am­in­ing the cost/ben­e­fit analy­sis, gov­ern­ment had de­cid­ed that in­vest­ment in lo­cal crick­et de­vel­op­ment would have been more ben­e­fi­cial, es­pe­cial­ly in light of “lim­it­ed re­sources”, and would pro­ceed with in­ject­ing $100 mil­lion (US$648 000) in­to this area over the next five years.

“In our cost/ben­e­fit analy­sis with stake­hold­ers, we al­so con­sid­ered the eco­nom­ic, so­cial and de­vel­op­ment im­pact, in­clud­ing the po­ten­tial tourism-re­lat­ed im­pact and at­ten­dant in­dus­try ben­e­fits us­ing year-over-year eco­nom­ic mod­el­ling, rec­on­ciled against cur­rent tourism per­for­mance,” Grange said in a re­lease.

“It was not an easy de­ci­sion and I very much un­der­stand and share the dis­ap­point­ment of fans who want­ed to see T20 World Cup games be­ing played in Ja­maica.

“How­ev­er, I could not just fol­low my heart. As a re­spon­si­ble Min­is­ter, I am oblig­ed to look be­yond im­me­di­ate grat­i­fi­ca­tion to sus­tain­able sport de­vel­op­ment that will yield im­mea­sur­able re­wards at all lev­els in Ja­maica.”

She con­tin­ued: “I had to pay at­ten­tion to the cost/ben­e­fit analy­sis, es­pe­cial­ly in a cir­cum­stance of lim­it­ed re­sources. In or­der to play our part in, hope­ful­ly in the not too dis­tant fu­ture, fix­ing West In­dies Crick­et, we will pri­ori­tise in­vest­ment in the lo­cal game.”

The T20 World Cup is sched­uled for June 4-30 and will in­volve 20 teams for the first time, as the ICC moves to ex­pand the tour­na­ment. For the first time, the Unit­ed States will host a leg of the tour­na­ment, with match­es card­ed for Dal­las, Fort Laud­erdale and New York.

Crick­et West In­dies has al­ready said it ex­pects the Caribbean to ben­e­fit from the eco­nom­ic spin-offs as­so­ci­at­ed with host­ing the tour­na­ment, re­lat­ing to in­creased em­ploy­ment and en­hanced glob­al ex­po­sure for the tourism prod­uct.

CMC