GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana—Crick­et West In­dies pres­i­dent, Dr Kishore Shal­low, has de­scribed next year’s ar­rival of the ICC Twen­ty20 World Cup as “ex­cit­ing times”, and an­tic­i­pates pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic spin-offs for the re­gion.

The Caribbean is poised to host the glob­al show­piece from June 4-30, with match­es be­ing played across sev­en host venues in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and St Lu­cia.

The up­com­ing edi­tion will be the largest ever with the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil ex­pand­ing the com­ple­ment of teams to 20.

“(These are) ex­cit­ing times. It’s a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for the re­gion,” Shal­low said.

“Just to put this in­to per­spec­tive: the last World Cup in Aus­tralia, you had like 1500 jobs be­ing cre­at­ed, over US$365 mil­lion in terms of eco­nom­ic im­pact. This is what this means to the re­gion.

“This is go­ing to be the biggest World Cup ever—20 teams. And of course, we have thou­sands of fans com­ing to the Caribbean to wit­ness this—great.”

West In­dies will co-host the tour­na­ment with the Unit­ed States, which marks the first time an ICC World Cup will be played on Amer­i­can soil.

The ICC an­nounced this week that the Texas city of Dal­las, Fort Laud­erdale in Flori­da and Nas­sau Coun­ty in New York, would serve as venues for match­es.

Shal­low said the move to in­cor­po­rate the Unit­ed States was an im­por­tant one in the con­text of crick­et de­vel­op­ment in that re­gion and glob­al­ly.

“We need to take the game to North Amer­i­ca,” he point­ed out.

“We have been sort of adopt­ing the USA as a lit­tle broth­er over the last years and I think this is very im­por­tant that we help to grow the game in North Amer­i­ca which is our re­gion.”

He added: “There are 106 coun­tries that cur­rent­ly play crick­et (and) one bil­lion crick­et lovers across the world and that’s what the World Cup is next year as well be­cause we’re talk­ing about mil­lions view­ing this World Cup.

“We’re go­ing to be putting on a spec­ta­cle for the en­tire world and again, it’s a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for all the stake­hold­ers in not on­ly West In­dies crick­et but glob­al crick­et as well, and I can on­ly see the sport grow­ing af­ter this World Cup next year.”

West In­dies failed to qual­i­fy for the last T20 World Cup staged last year in Aus­tralia but will have an au­to­mat­ic spot at next year’s show­piece by be­ing hosts. (CMC)