The venues for T20 World Cup 2024 in the Caribbean are now fixed! Antigua. Barbados, Dominica, Guyana, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenadines, and Trinidad & Tobago are seven countries in the Caribbean that will co-host the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 along with the USA. Earlier this week, ICC also released the three cities in the USA that will host the marquee event.
The prestigious tournament which will be played between June 4-30, co-hosted by West Indies & the USA will see 20 teams playing a total of 55 fixtures across 10 venues. In addition to three cities in US- Dallas, Florida, and New York – seven countries in the Caribbean will be hosting the World Cup which makes the T20 World Cup 2024 the biggest T20 World Cup ever.
Though the media release didn’t specify which venues will host the knockout fixtures, as per the reports from the media portal it has been learned that Guyana, Barbados, and T&T will host the super stage fixtures & finals. It is also learned that the Brian Lara stadium (Tarouba, Trinidad) was the frontrunner to host the final along with Kensington Oval in Barbados. At this stage, the three venues in the USA would only host the group-phase matches.
What was the process to shortlist the venues for T20 World Cup 2024?
The final list of venues in the CPL 2023 was shortlisted by the ICC along with CWI based on the bids from local governments. This may be the Cricket West Indies sought bids to host the marquee event which is advertised as the “Carnival of Cricket.” Johnny Grave, CWI’s CEO further said that the T20 World Cup would help the local governments in the Caribbean along with CWI and ICC to “unlock new commercial and economic growth opportunities.”
All the popular cricketing destinations across the Caribbean bid for the hosting rights of the T20 World Cup 2024 except Jamaica, Grenada, and St Kitts and Nevis. These three venues will not host any World Cup matches. It is understood that of the 55 matches, about 39 or 40 would be played in the Caribbean and the remaining – 15 or 16 – will take place at the three venues in the USA.
Notably, this will be the third time that the Men’s T20 World Cup will be hosted in the West Indies. It is also the first time in 14 years that Caribbean will host the marquee event. The Caribbean has previously hosted the 2007 ODI World Cup and the 2010 World T20. On Friday, Grave said that CWI was encouraged by the huge responses and enthusiasm of several countries for hosting the most significant sporting event held in our region for a generation.
The T20 World Cup 2024 will be the first global event in the ICC FTP 2024-2031 that was finalized in 2021. The format will also be different from the last two editions, where the first round was followed by Super 12s. In the upcoming edition of T20 World Cup 2024, 20 teams will be divided into two groups of five each for the first round of the tournament. Out of these five teams, two teams from each group will march into the Super 8 stage. The Super 8 teams will be split into two groups of four apiece, with the top two in each group reaching the semi-finals.
