Next year’s 2022 International Cricket Council (ICC) U19 World Cup will be played in the Caribbean. The tournament which will involve 16 countries participating in a grand total of 64 matches is scheduled to start sometime in January 2021. Although the 16 participating countries, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Uganda, United Arab Emirates and Zimbabwe have long since been identified, the ICC is yet to announce either the tournament’s
hosting venues or its match schedules. To date all that is known is that the tournament will be held in four Caribbean countries, including reportedly Antigua, Guyana, and Trinidad & Tobago.
The forthcoming 2022 U19 World Cup is first and foremost an ICC-owned event. As such the release to the interested general public, via the media, of its actual venues and match schedules, is totally under the
ICC’s control. The continuing delays in the release of such information is, however, not only at Cricket West Indies’ expense but also that of the respective hosting countries.
As the current economic mainstay and largest source of earned
revenue, of many of the Caribbean Region’s territories, tourism as
an industry has been devastated within the past two years by the
international travel restrictions which have ensued as a direct effect of
the COVID 19 Pandemic. The pending arrival of cricketers, supporting
staff members, tournament officials, administrators and media to
the Caribbean from as many as 16 countries come this January will
therefore represent a major, much needed, boost to the tourism
associated economies of the U19 World Cup’s four Caribbean hosting
countries.
As big a boost as that may actually turn out to be, however, it pales by
comparison to the potential effect that would be derived if family
members and friends of the participating players could also be
successfully encouraged to travel to the Caribbean to attend the
matches in support of their respective teams. Canada’s participation
in the tournament at an eventual venue that will be within reach
after a mere five and a half hours of air travel, will provide the family
and friends of its selected players a very rare and prime opportunity
to attend the matches in support of its team. Such match attendance
opportunities will also be of interest to the hundreds of thousands
of Canadian and US resident supporters of the Bangladesh, India,
Pakistan, South African and Sri Lankan teams.
For Cricket West Indies and the eventual identified Caribbean hosting
countries of next year’s ICC U19 World Cup, a monumentally large
target market of potential visiting match attendance spectators
now, therefore, exists. The extent to which that potential can be fully
developed into actual spectators will, however, be in direct correlation
to the amount of time that will be available for associated promotional
packages to be presented to such individuals. With the month of
November having now already become a reality and only Christmas
burdened December still remaining before the Tournament gets under
way in January, the available time for such required promotions to be
made is now very quickly running out.
Time therefore for Cricket West Indies to request of the ICC that it
releases to the general public the associated information on the U19
World Cup’s venues and match schedules as quickly as possible. The
more time potential overseas spectators can be given to contemplate
and decide upon their travel to the Caribbean in support of their
respective teams, the greater their actual match attendance will likely
be!