ST. JOHN’S, An­tigua – Ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed fans will be al­lowed in­side venues here when the coun­try hosts the en­tire Su­per League seg­ment of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) Un­der-19 Men’s Crick­et World Cup 2022, start­ing next month, Sports Min­is­ter Daryll Matthew an­nounced Thurs­day.

But he said that could change de­pend­ing on COVID-19 de­vel­op­ments in the coun­try, giv­en the emer­gence of Omi­cron, a new vari­ant of the virus.

The Un­der-19 Men’s Crick­et World Cup will be held for the Caribbean for the first time, from Jan­u­ary 14 to Feb­ru­ary 5, 2022, and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da will host the quar­ter­fi­nals, se­mi-fi­nals and the ti­tle-de­cider. Match­es will be at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um (SVRS) and Coolidge Crick­et Ground, start­ing Jan­u­ary 26.

“As it is now, the in­ten­tion is to al­low fans who are vac­ci­nat­ed ac­cess to the venues for the match­es,” Matthew said at the cer­e­mo­ny for the of­fi­cial Host Venue An­nounce­ment, held at SVRS where the fi­nal of the up­com­ing tour­na­ment will take place.

“How­ev­er, we are fac­ing un­cer­tain times with the emer­gence of a new vari­ant, so that de­ci­sion will be tak­en as we get clos­er to the time where match­es will be host­ed here in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and we will con­tin­ue to work with the Min­istry of Health to ad­vise us and guide us ac­cord­ing­ly.”

Out­lin­ing An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s out­stand­ing record of de­liv­er­ing world-class crick­et, even amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Matthew promised the coun­try will stand tall in host­ing the tour­na­ment.

He up­held the twin-is­land na­tion as an ex­cel­lent ex­am­ple in safe­ly host­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sport.

“Through­out the year, we demon­strat­ed our abil­i­ty to stage events and do it well. The CG In­sur­ance Su­per 50 tour­na­ment, we suc­cess­ful­ly host­ed the en­tire event. The Sri Lan­ka (men’s) tour – we de­liv­ered. We suc­cess­ful­ly host­ed a Pak­istan (women’s) tour as well as the South Africa women’s tour – we de­liv­ered. And a few weeks ago, we suc­cess­ful­ly host­ed the ICC Amer­i­cans tour­na­ment – we de­liv­ered.

“And so, this tour­na­ment with the Un­der-19s…will once again be a demon­stra­tion of our abil­i­ty to suc­cess­ful­ly host and to do it so very well,” Matthew told in­vit­ed guests, in­clud­ing the coun­try’s four crick­et­ing knights – Sir Vi­vian Richards, Sir Andy Roberts, Sir Richie Richard­son and Sir Curt­ly Am­brose.

John­ny Grave, CEO of Crick­et West In­dies (CWI), echoed Min­is­ter Matthew’s sen­ti­ments, not­ing that while putting on any event in the pan­dem­ic is a mas­sive chal­lenge, CWI has with­stood the test.

“This is an ex­treme­ly ex­cit­ing event for us and cul­mi­nates an un­be­liev­able year of crick­et, par­tic­u­lar­ly in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da where we’ve host­ed…more crick­et in the last ten months, de­spite the chal­lenges of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, than ever be­fore. We wel­comed more in­ter­na­tion­al teams in both our men’s and women’s sports as well as the in­au­gur­al women’s A Team se­ries that we host­ed here against Pak­istan in the sum­mer,” he said, cit­ing the West In­dies as a prime crick­et­ing des­ti­na­tion.

In ad­di­tion, Grave praised the un­sung he­roes of the game who con­tin­ue to work tire­less­ly be­hind the scenes to make sure crick­et keeps go­ing strong dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times.

“I want to thank prob­a­bly a group of peo­ple that don’t get thanked enough – and that’s the ground staff here at the Sta­di­um and at Coolidge Crick­et Ground – for the amount work that the ground staff put in, not just to pro­duce good qual­i­ty wick­ets for the match­es but for the im­por­tant prepa­ra­tion of our teams, both the vis­it­ing teams and al­so the West In­dies teams. [It] has been sec­ond to none. They have worked morn­ing, noon and night; week­ends, bank hol­i­days, in or­der to al­low us to play crick­et in this coun­try,” he said.

Matthew al­so hailed the con­tri­bu­tions of per­sons who work be­hind the scenes in crick­et, ap­plaud­ing them for their dili­gent ser­vice.

“I would like to thank those per­sons who of­ten go un­her­ald­ed – the ground staff, the clean­ing staff, those per­sons who en­sure that when the team steps out on­to the field they can do so with the con­fi­dence [of] know­ing that the field is in im­mac­u­late con­di­tion and we have ex­cel­lent pitch­es,” said the Sports Min­is­ter, as­sur­ing CWI and the ICC of the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued sup­port.

Apart from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana and St. Kitts and Nevis will host the match­es in the 14th edi­tion of the tour­na­ment in which Bangladesh are de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons.

(CMC)