The president of USA Cricket, Atul Rai, claims that the ICC Venue Inspection Team has visited Oakland, Florida, and Los Angeles as potential locations for the 2024 T20 World Cup, which West Indies and the United States will jointly host. Due to the strong fan support from both teams, India and Pakistan’s biggest box office match at the ICC event is likely to be in the United States, not West Indies.
“Preferably it will be held in the USA considering that India’s T20 games against West Indies in Florida were completely sold out,” Rai stated in an interview with PTI. The Caribbean has previously hosted the Twenty20 World Cup as well as the 50-over World Cup, which will be held in the United States in 2024.
“When they returned in December, they had narrowed their search,” Rai continued. Chris Tetley led the ICC events team on a tour of several cities in May to investigate a variety of points of interest,” he added. The main event aims to make cricket more popular in North America, which has a lot of Asians living there.
According to the statement, “We anticipate that we will need at least 18 months to prepare and manage each venue for a global event.” During the most recent inspection, they went to the Oaklands Coliseum in San Francisco and the Woodley Cricket Field in Los Angeles. Rai stated that an investigation was also being conducted into the grounds in Texas and Dallas.
An obvious choice is still the Fort Lauderhill stadium in Florida, which hosted a few Twenty20 matches between India and the West Indies last year. One of the issues is that the majority of the baseball fields in the United States that will be converted into cricket fields are baseball fields with smaller dimensions and fewer capacities.
But Rai promised that dimensions would not be a problem because the International Criminal Court (ICC) would look into every aspect and choose the right grounds. “India A had traveled to Los Angeles to play five games against Australia. We can see that they had done so from the stadium there. “It’s a proper cricket field with a lot of seating and big boundaries,” Rai proclaimed.
Rai went on to say that Major League Cricket (MLC) has promised the parent organization that the venues in Dallas and Texas will be ready for a game. However, many New York cricket fields can be transformed into tournament-ready venues with the assistance of portable galleries, which could be even more exciting.
“New York, where a lot of people follow the sport, is another possibility.” According to a statement made by the then-mayor of the city, one out of every eight New Yorkers plays cricket. The Global Cricket Gathering (ICC) will provide the US with the scenes and match numbers, according to Rai.
He asserted that the most significant advantage is the rapid construction of infrastructure. “The temporary galleries will be built in no more than two weeks if it is held on any New York City grounds. There are turf pitches on every field in New York.”
The timing of the match, however, will be the most contentious issue because it will appeal to Indian and Pakistani home fans. If Indian Twenty20 cricket matches are streamed live at night, the anticipated run-fest may not take place as smoothly. They will instead begin in the morning.
“If the games are held on the West Coast, they will probably start late at night local time and be broadcast in India early in the morning,” states the author. It could be evening India time and morning local time on the east coast. Rai stated, “ICC will make the final decision,” despite the fact that they would consider our points of view.