Hilaire

When the ICC World Twenty20 2010 bowls off in the Caribbean from April 30-May 16, next year, fans of this latest incarnation of the sport can expect cheaper tickets, greater levels of entertainment and an overall more enjoyable event. This is the word from tournament director Dr Ernest Hilaire.

Dr Hilaire and an international contingent that included representatives of the West Indies Cricket Board, the WT20 project team, the International Cricket Council, the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations and ESPN STAR Sports yesterday completed a weeklong inspection tour of the facilities, warm-up and practice locations and hotels in the four host countries.

Details of findings

And while details of their findings will not be revealed for some time, word is that while some work needs to be done to bring some of the facilities up to par in time for next year, it should not be that significant a challenge.

"Most venues hosted Cricket World Cup matches and would have been determined to already be up to international standard, so we have been going around primarily looking at the venues and seeing how we can make the necessary changes to accommodate the 20/20 matches," Dr Hilaire revealed on SportsNation on Newstalk93FM late last week.

He provided a peek into the nature of the adjustments that will have to be made to the existing facilities. The venues, he said, would be hosting double-headers but the cricket stadia are equipped only with two dressing rooms.

"So the first thing you will look at is how you can put in two temporary dressing rooms," he said. In addition, adjustments will also have to be made with regard to warm-up areas for the members of teams that are playing the second match while the first two teams are still playing or would have just completed a game.

Barbados, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis and St Lucia have been selected as the countries that will be hosting matches. Jamaica was not considered, Dr Hilaire said, because they did not submit a "complete bid" and the fact that some of the matches would be ending at night, that Jamaica's cricketing stadia did not have lighting would have worked against the country being selected to host matches.

The ticket launch was held in St Lucia last night (Saturday) where the official logo for the competition was launched and ticket prices were announced. Dr Hilaire, learning from the experience of the Cricket World Cup 2007 when ticket prices were generally deemed to be too high, said that for the Twenty20 World Cup things would be a lot different. The tournament director revealed on SportsNation that ticket prices would be as "low as they can be" and for some "younger persons" tickets would be free of cost.