Global cricket’s governing body, the International Cricket Conference (ICC) recently announced that the West Indies and the USA will host the 2024 T20 World Cup, the tournament’s third successive edition in as many years. The ICC’s 2024 T20 World Cup assignment was also very quickly followed by its announcement of the official Match Schedule for the West Indies’ hosting of the 2022 U19 World Cup from January 14 – February 5 at venues in Antigua, Guyana, St Kitts, and Trinidad.
These two undoubtedly wonderful ICC World Cup hosting assignments could not have come at a better time for West Indies cricket. Understandably, morale, among even its most genuine fans, must now be at an all-time low following the team’s calamitous performance in the recently concluded ICC 2021 T20 World Cup.
The forthcoming U19 World Cup will provide the West Indies “Rising Stars” with numerous opportunities to showcase their talents to a global audience while playing on “home soil” conditions with which they should by now be comfortably familiar. Placed in the tournament’s Group D, the West Indies’ preliminary round opponents will be Australia, Scotland and Sri Lanka. Unlike their senior counterparts in the recent T20 World Cup, they will be expected to progress beyond the preliminary round and into the tournament’s playoff stages.
Guyana’s exciting batsman Matthew Nandu, and promising fast bowler Isaiah Thorne, as well as the Barbadian-born trio of batter Rivaldo Clarke, seamer Johan Layne, and wicket-keeper Kevin Wickham, are among those who will be expected to feature prominently for the West Indies Rising Stars during the forthcoming U19 World Cup. With the West Indies’ white-ball teams now undeniably in a state of flux, in both the T20 and 50 over formats, the U19 World Cup will also provide excellent opportunities for the Rising Stars to state their claims for senior team promotion. Every member of the West Indies final U19 World Cup squad, which is expected to be captained by St Lucia’s Akeem Auguste, should indeed be entering their actual U19 World Cup playing opportunities with the mindset that consistently outstanding performances on their part could well open the doors to subsequent senior team selection.
The West Indies’ hosting of the 2022 U19 World Cup should also serve as a useful dress rehearsal for the much more prestigious and significant 2024 50 over World Cup. In that regard, both the ICC and Cricket West Indies can now be justifiably accused of having done the U19 World Cup’s host venue countries, and Caribbean tourism overall, a major disservice through the very late announcement of the tournament’s playing groups and match schedules.
The ICC’s announcement of the U19 World Cup match schedules was actually made on November 17, less than two months before the tournament’s January 14, 2022 commencement. As such the rather unfortunate, if not unnecessary, delay might now prove to have not allowed sufficient time for supporters of the participating countries, particularly the thousands of North America-based fans of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, not to mention those of the defending champions Bangladesh or for that matter the family members and friends of Team Canada, to make the necessary arrangements for travel to the Caribbean in support of their respective teams.
As majorly important as it is to the small island economies of Antigua and St Kitts, if not quite so much to those of Guyana and Trinidad, Caribbean tourism has been significantly devastated by the ongoing COVID-19 induced international travel disruptions. As such the industry’s overall recovery would have benefited tremendously from the boost that a far more timely announcement of the U19 World Cup’s match schedules would have provided.
Having already dropped the ball on the scheduling announcement for the 2022 U19 World Cup, it is hoped that looking forward to 2024 both the ICC and CWI won’t make as much of a royal mess as they did during the Caribbean region’s hosting of the 2007 World Cup. The colossal mistakes that were made in 2007 and which need to be avoided in 2024 are easily identifiable.
At the very top of the list would be the actual timing of when the tournament should ideally be held. The 2007 tournament was staged from March 13 – April 28, at prime time for Caribbean hotels when available rooms were still being filled by the normal sun-seeking tourists. Adding the associated accommodation requirements of 16 participating country representative teams, their respective players, support staff, media, and tournament staff severely strained hotel room capacities in the hosting countries, long before the needs of attending spectator fans were even addressed.
Rather than a March – April timeframe, the 2024 World Cup should instead ideally be held from July – August. This would arguably be the timeframe that would be most advantageous for the Caribbean region’s hotels to accommodate all those associated with the tournament.
The pricing of entry tickets for the tournament’s matches was another 2007 fiasco that will need to be corrected. Unlike the 2007 experience match entry ticket prices for the 2024 World Cup must be accurately reflective of the economic realities of the Caribbean hosting countries. It would be immoral for the ICC and/or CWI to repeat the unfortunate 2007 World Cup practice of establishing match ticket prices that the local fans simply could not afford.
In terms of affordability, CWI also now needs to seriously reconsider the existing online pricing of its West Indies team shirts. Whoever it is at Cricket West Indies’ Antigua Factory Road based headquarters that thinks that even the most loyal West Indies cricket fan will readily pay approximately US$75 for a team shirt, given its recent embarrassingly shoddy 2021 T20 World Cup performances, must surely be suffering from a very severe and chronic case of rampant delusion. The said individual must also be totally unaware of the comparative pricing for the now far more valuable team shirts of the Australians as tournament champions, and/or those of the other three T20 World Cup semi-finalists England, Pakistan and New Zealand, each of which can be purchased for under US$50.
Rather than its current unscrupulous overpricing, between now and 2024, CWI should instead seek to produce a highly affordable and attractive West Indies team shirt that every fan would not only want to purchase, and more importantly would be easily capable of doing so. Whenever the West Indies team steps onto to the field for its 2024 World Cup matches, therefore, it should be against the backdrop of venues filled with a majority of supportive local fans, well decked out in their West Indies team shirts.
Unlike in 2007 when local fans were initially prohibited from taking their flags, conch shells, horns, vuzelas, and other supportive noise makers into the match venues, such an abomination must not be repeated in 2024. A World Cup staged in the Caribbean must be fully reflective of our way of life and with absolutely no imposed restrictions to the way we express ourselves in support of cricket being played at its highest level.
A 2022 U19 World Cup hosting dress rehearsal in the offing and two years thereafter to get things absolutely right for the big show in 2024. Two most wonderful assignments indeed!
About The Writers:
Guyana-born, Toronto-based, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted towards Caribbean and Canadian readers. He is also the only son of the former Guyana and West Indies wicket-keeper batsman the late Clifford “Baby Boy” McWatt.
Guyana-born Reds (Perreira) has served as a world-recognized West Indies Cricket Commentator for well over fifty years. Reds made his broadcasting debut during the 1971 West Indies-India Test Series, and has commentated on hundreds of matches since then!
