ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Sprint icon Us­ain Bolt has been named as an am­bas­sador for this June’s ICC Twen­ty20 World Cup.

The 37-year-old, wide­ly re­gard­ed as the finest sprint­er of all time with world records in the 100 and 200 me­tres, “will play a key role in pro­mot­ing the event”, or­gan­is­ers the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil said in a me­dia state­ment on Wednes­day.

Bolt’s first ap­pear­ance will come in the re­lease of the T20 World Cup’s of­fi­cial an­them mu­sic video, along­side Caribbean artistes Sean Paul and Kes.

The Ja­maican will al­so at­tend games and be part of the fan en­gage­ment pro­mo­tions for the June 1-29 which is be­ing joint­ly host­ed by the Caribbean and the Unit­ed States.

“I am thrilled to be an am­bas­sador for the up­com­ing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup,” said Bolt, who won eight Olympic gold medals and 11 World Cham­pi­onship gold dur­ing a stel­lar ca­reer.

“Com­ing from the Caribbean where crick­et is a part of life, the sport has al­ways held a spe­cial place in my heart, and I look for­ward to at­tend­ing West In­dies match­es at the World Cup and mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion to the growth of crick­et glob­al­ly.

“While I will of course be sup­port­ing West In­dies at the World Cup, get­ting the sport in­to the US is big for crick­et.

“It’s the biggest sports mar­ket in the world and the en­er­gy that we will bring for the T20 World Cup is a huge op­por­tu­ni­ty lead­ing to­wards crick­et’s in­clu­sion in the LA Olympics in 2028.”

The Unit­ed States will be stag­ing its first ever T20 World Cup, with games be­ing played in Fort Laud­erdale, New York and Dal­las.

And ICC chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Ge­off Al­lardice, said he ex­pect­ed Bolt to “en­gage with a new gen­er­a­tion of fans” dur­ing the show­piece.

“Us­ain Bolt is a glob­al icon, we are thrilled to have him on board as an Am­bas­sador for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 to en­gage with a new gen­er­a­tion of fans,” said Al­lardice.

“His pas­sion for crick­et is well known, mak­ing him the per­fect fit for this role. Along­side his world record break­ing achieve­ments and en­er­getic per­son­al­i­ty, he will add an­oth­er ex­cit­ing el­e­ment to the World Cup.”

A record 20 teams will con­test the T20 World Cup, with West In­dies in Group C along­side New Zealand, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea and Ugan­da.

(CMC)