With time now ‘flying by’ before the staging of the June 1 to 29 Cricket World Cup here in the Caribbean, the focus of the region that is as concerned with the event’s financial success as it is for the quality of the spectacle that the event provides for cricket crazy Caribbean and extra-regional fans of the game is beginning to ‘seep through’ across the region. Given the current economic challenges confronting the majority of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member countries, it is hardly surprising that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has already began ‘throwing numbers around.’ Cricket West Indies (CWI) President, Kishore Shallow, has been quoted as saying that the event “is projected to yield over US$300 million in direct economic impact for the Caribbean,” and that, moreover, the event “is anticipated to captivate more than a billion viewers worldwide through television broadcasts, further elevating the global stature of the Caribbean as a sporting and tourist destination.”
Unsurprisingly, Barbados, the CARICOM member country that draws most of its economic ‘life blood’ from the tourism sector has already sent an unmistakable message that it intends to invest heavily in significantly shoring up the Kensington Oval, the venue tagged to host eight of the earlier matches in the tournament and – on top of those matches – the Final. In November, the island received a US$25 million loan from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) to upgrade Kensington Oval in preparation for the group encounters and the Final, a development that demonstrates the determination by Barbados to maximize the returns that the island extracts from the staging of the region’s most popular game in a country that embraces cricket as enthusiastically as any other country, anywhere.
At the level of the regional private sector, the Chairperson of the Barbados Private sector Association, Trisha Tannis, was quoted as saying recently that while business activity linked to the 2024 T-20 Cricket World Cup were yet to begin ‘firing’ the private sector was hoping that the environment will change ‘very rapidly’ as the tournament draws closer. Unsurprisingly, Tannis declared that the tourism sector and food-related businesses will be among the main financial beneficiaries of the increased economic activity. Guyana already has embraced a celebratory disposition to go along with the country’s new-found oil wealth. Guyanese and visitors to the country for the matches to be played here will be treated to the customary up tempo environment that is expected to attend matches played at the National Stadium, at Providence. Here, the celebratory mood is only likely to be minimally diminished by the ‘ordeal’ which, these days, attends the movement of vehicular traffic between the capital and the Providence Stadium.
‘Getting around’ large swathes of urban Guyana, these days, is more than a trifle compromised by an urban makeover that targets, particularly, the country’s capital. Entertainment ‘addicts’ have learnt to ‘make do’ with the mostly modest Bars and Restaurants in the capital, Georgetown. Here one suspects, that given the common Caribbean appetite for ‘night life,’ entertainment will embrace the ‘hang outs’ that have become an integral part of the local ‘nice-time’ regime. Others, favouring a less ‘racy’ environment may simply take themselves off to the more salubrious environment of the handful of ‘up market’ Hotels and Restaurants in the capital and its environs. Whatever happens, the Caribbean is expected to embrace Cricket World Cup 2024 with its customary enormous appetite for cricket and the boisterous environment that goes with it.
