ICC T20 World Cup 2024
We are on the threshold of the commencement of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) T20 Cricket World Cup. This is being held in the Caribbean and the USA in the month of June. St Vincent and the Grenadines is scheduled to host a group.
As was done in 2007 when we were scheduled to host ‘goat cook’ matches that had no direct bearing on the competition, the government is investing millions in the upgrading of the Arnos Vale Sports Complex.
A cursory glance across the Caribbean countries that have been awarded matches in the T20 World Cup, everywhere, millions are involved in the preparations for the major tournament.
The hope is that each host nation is fully on board with the ICC is offering the international sports community an amazing competition, filled with great performances, new records, and consistently excited crowds.
Most importantly, every host nation is hopeful that the level of interest and excitement generated will translate into an appropriate justification for the International Olympic Committee’s decision to include cricket on the sports programme of the Summer Olympics of 2028, scheduled for Los Angeles.
2007 revisited
In the lead up to hosting Cricket World Cup 2007 (CWC2007), the Caribbean region was replete with sporting excitement. Everywhere the promise of an exciting competition filled the air.
Ardent cricket fans across the Caribbean eagerly scheduled their engagement in different countries, all the time expectant that the West Indies cricket team will give good account and possibly feature in the finals. This latter expectation was perceived as ‘the icing on the cake’.
Inadequate planning led to the creation of some venues being created and/or spruced up to an extent and at a cost that were both excessive. Even before the competition started the hosts were being criticised for being overly excessive with their expenses. In some instances, structures were constructed that was much larger than what was needed given the populations in the areas where they were located. In some cases, local populations were concerned about the gross excesses taking place all around them.
There were also major issues with the broader planning process. Governments allowed themselves to accept incredible expectations and responded with significant financial inflows that may well have been irresponsible.
The crowds that were anticipated never showed up and the local team did not play well enough to generate greater interest amongst the peoples of the Caribbean.
Unfortunately, the unexpected introduction of the ‘Sunset Legislation’ put a damper on the expectations and plans of the cricket fans across the region, which saw poor crowds at many of the competition matches, to say nothing of attendance at the goat cook’ matches held in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
One remains, to this day, uncertain of any cost-benefit analysis of the region’s hosting of the CWC2007. Governments that hosted events related to the mega cricket event seemed reluctant to reveal their balance sheets on their involvement. In the case of St Vincent and the Grenadines, the sport-loving public rejected the distressing searching of bags and the removal of drinks from them, including from children. For patrons, the spirit had been taken away from the sport. Decades of cultivation of a Caribbean cricket culture quickly dissipated in the face of insensitive governments and local organising committees across the region.
17 years after the hosting of the CWC2007, the Arnos Vale cricket arena was a poor shadow of itself in 2007, reflecting the absence of a maintenance plan ever having been in effect other than the playing area. We also showed ourselves inept in bringing closure to the organising committee.
St Vincent and the Grenadines watched in awe as the old, outdated scoreboard became something of an embarrassment and we no longer seemed capable of mounting a serious challenge for internationally exciting cricket matches, given that other nations around us had sought to keep pace with the contemporary requirements of the ICC.
The problem for us is that we appear unable to bring the government to account for much of anything it says and does.
Planning for 2024
The ICC and Cricket West Indies agreed to host the T20 World Cup in 2024 and we are nearing the starting gate.
At Arnos Vale there is a race in progress to complete. The extensive works being undertaken. Appearances suggest that, as happened in 2007, we may be putting finishing touches to the facilities at Arnos Vale on the night before the first match is played. Some may emerge from the event with a few smudges of fresh paint on their clothes.
Initially there were some tense moments occasioned by challenges in respect of who should be appointment the Chair of the Local Organising Committee.
There appeared to have been some challenges in respect of getting the work started on the Arnos Vale competition arena. This may well explain the haste that now characterises the preparatory exercise when one visits the complex.
There are some who suggest that we are accustomed to doing necessary things at the last minute. We seem to be trying to transform this approach into an artform. The reality is that it bodes for nothing good and should be readily abandoned, if we are to be ever taken seriously as professionals.
The hope of all Vincentian lovers of sport is that the facilities would be completed in time to stave off international embarrassment and make good on our commitment to deliver quality facilities.
Thankfully, the newly constructed, Sandals Resort would be able to have all the teams hosted in St Vincent and the Grenadines in one place. This will come at a tremendous cost unless some major concessions are offered.
To be fair, the grouping that St Vincent and the Grenadines has been awarded does not offer much excitement, except for South Africa. But the long absence of genuinely exciting cricket competition may have stimulated Vincentian patrons to want to attend the matches being hosted. There is much yearning for the game in the country, and even more so for it to be played at the highest level.
Vincentians are also hoping that the West Indies cricket team will play at a consistently high enough standard to allow them to make the final eight, in which case, we may get one of the exciting contests of that round of competition.
The erection of lights around the Arnos Vale cricket ground has been long in coming. We all understood that this could not have been done while the Complex was deemed too close to the ET Joshua Airport.
The lights will allow for evening matches in cricket but will also serve several other sports which are keen on hosting their competitions and sporting festivals after working hours and on weekends.
We can expect that any evening matches in the T20 competition would immediately serve as a boon to the SVG Cricket Association, because of the novelty, initially, before it all settles into the mainstream sporting culture of our beautiful country.
Thus far, the preparations have incorporated an advertising campaign that is significantly more aggressive, appealing, and exciting than what took place in 2007. More Vincentians and perhaps more sport loving people around the Caribbean are already much. Better informed about the T20 World Cup 2024 than they were about CWC2007. This should guarantee larger crowds in attendance everywhere.
Cricket 2024 and Caribbean culture
Cricket West Indies has been making a concerted effort at professionalising its operations and encouraged a more deliberate alignment with the culture of our Caribbean people.
In St Vincent and the Grenadines, the engagement of the local launch of the T202024 with our annual Carnival launch offers the international cricket fraternity a singular opportunity to experience the rhythm of our people in full revelry with the creative genius of the region’s cricketers in pursuit of excellence on the field of play.
Over the years, we have not always fully capitalised on the cultural variables that have given rise to the Caribbean peoples as emergent and in a persistent re-creation of ourselves through sport, showcasing an abundance of talent beyond the expectations of those who once colonised us and those who benefitted from such colonisation.
Gravy and Chickie began blending a unique cricket culture that transformed attendance at international cricket competitions into an entertainment experience that is of our making. It captured the essence of our being Caribbean people.
Trinidad and Tobago calypsonian, David Rudder, crafted and delivered the inspiring ‘Rally ‘Round De West Indies’, a calypso that resonated with all of us to such an extent that it is the unofficial anthem of Caribbean cricket. The words compel all of us to understand regional unity through sport as an unquenchable mandate.
Caribbean excellence blends our intellectual superiority with that of our cultural richness and sporting talent.
We are better than what others deliberately sought to make of us.
We are better than the blinkered, often incredibly myopic insularity that seeks to keep us divided while laying claim that there is more that unites us than divides us.
We are much more than mimic men as Naipaul characterised us and we have proven ourselves capable of rising above the non-society that some academics thought of us.
Indeed, through sport, especially those in which we have consistently excelled, much more than just cricket, we have created our own ‘creole’ legacies for successive generations, ideally constructed upon the contradictory omens identified by Edward Kamau Brathwaite of Barbados.
Legends of Legacy
Cricket was not the making of the peoples of the Caribbean. It came from the colonisers. We have however used this sport to give credence to the immeasurable talent with which we are imbued. We used this sport to forces the world to recognise us, albeit several decades after athletics displayed our dignified commitment to sporting excellence, beginning with the Summer Olympics of 1948, quickly followed up by our achievements in Helsinki, Finland.
International cricket has benefitted from our approach to the game. We have produced the finest in every aspect of the game and continue to prove a unique attraction in the cricket arena, even when we lose.
The hosting of T202024 offers yet another stage upon which all of us as Caribbean people must shine. We must seize the moment and once more etch our names in the sport’s history. With immeasurable pride we hold fast to our commitment to sporting excellence at once embracing the legends, carrying with them the aspirations of our people; aspirations that will forever thrust us onto global recognition.
