Thurs­day marked 100 days to the start of the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed 2024 ICC T20 World Cup which will be host­ed in the West In­dies and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. Yes­ter­day the Lo­cal Or­ga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee made a splash through­out the re­gion.

The World Cup will be played in venues through­out the Caribbean and the Unit­ed States from June 1 to 29.

Kay­la Matthew-Ward Re­gion­al Mar­ket­ing Of­fi­cer for the T20 World Cup and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines said the of­fi­cial launch of the tour­na­ment took place si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go at the C3 Cen­tre in San Fer­nan­do, Bar­ba­dos, An­tigua, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Matthew-Ward said, "This event is bring­ing this ex­pe­ri­ence to all the is­lands, we're dis­play­ing each is­land's cul­ture and it's a task be­cause we have to re­mem­ber that each mar­ket is dif­fer­ent so we have to tai­lor it to suit and then you al­so have to be ex­pres­sive of each is­land and their cul­ture."

The South shop­ping com­plex was awash with colour and the sounds of T&T's cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions and in­clud­ed per­for­mances by the Tri­ni Gen­er­a­tion Next Rhythm Sec­tion, Satyam Dancers, Cham­pi­ons Boys Tas­sa Drum­mers, Neval Chate­lal and so­ca artiste Preedy.

Math­ew-Ward said the idea was to sell the re­gion to the world.

A T20 World Cup win­ner in 2012 and 2016, Samuel Badree un­der­lined the tour­na­ment's im­por­tance to the next gen­er­a­tion of West In­dies crick­eters.

He said, "This T20 World Cup be­ing host­ed on our shores is sure to in­crease aware­ness and en­thu­si­asm and I'm re­al­ly ex­cit­ed to see what this can bring for us. A tour­na­ment of this na­ture, a glob­al tour­na­ment, a show­piece tour­na­ment, one of the most viewed tour­na­ments in the world and I think if we can do well as a team, as a crick­et­ing na­tion it can re­al­ly rein­vig­o­rate in­ter­est in the sport."

He said a win could do won­ders for the West In­dies. "I've ex­pe­ri­enced that suc­cess, and more im­por­tant­ly what that suc­cess means to the Caribbean, it has brought so much joy to the peo­ple," Badree said.

He con­clud­ed, "Re­al­is­ti­cal­ly I think we have a very good chance, we have some ex­cit­ing young play­ers led by Rov­man Pow­ell and Nicholas Pooran and our chances are very good. If we can put to­geth­er a to­tal game every time we step on the field I think we can beat any op­po­si­tion."