By Neto Baptiste
Organisers of the inaugural Leeward Islands T20 Festival are hoping for positive news regarding the suitability of lights at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium ahead of Saturday’s start to the anticipated competition.
This is according to one member of the organising team, Dario Barthley, who said he has been in constant dialog with stadium management regarding the progress of work being carried out on the lights at the North Sound venue.
“I think that the only hold-up is really the match schedule and that is due to us waiting on the lights at the stadium and making sure that the lights are appropriate for what we want to do because if not, we would have to play more matches during the day. So that’s the only real hold-up and why promotions have, not necessarily been stalled but there is no fixture out. Obviously, we’re dealing with something very technical so I can’t necessarily tell you exactly what the issue is with the lights; but we’re just waiting to see whether the lights will be appropriate for the period and it’s ongoing work as far as I know,” he said.
The tournament, which is scheduled to run from May 31 to June 8, will feature six teams including hosts Antigua and Barbuda. The other teams are Virgin Islands, Combined Islands, Anguilla, St Kitts and neighbouring Nevis.
Barthley said contingencies are in place to mitigate against the possible unavailability of the venue for night matches.
“We’ve kind of set a deadline of tomorrow [May 27] morning, internally, to say whether or not that is the case. Matches will still be played within the same period so we will definitely begin on Saturday but it’s just whether we have that night game or not; that’s up for question. It will be three matches per day so all six teams will be engaged on every match day and we would be looking to play Saturday and Sunday and then Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, Sunday again to close off the tournament,” he said.
The Antiguan said the hope is that the tournament will grow into something positive and useful to sub-regional cricket.
“We just think that the tournament is something that is necessary to give our Leeward Islands players, considering there are two CPL franchises now located within the Leeward Islands; considering the breakout league and the opportunities that it creates, we just think it’s good to have some vibrancy in that form of the cricket within the region,” Barthley said.
“Through support from Enoch Lewis, the president, and the CEO Peter Abraham, I think that this is something they really wanted to happen and we’re at the point now where we think we are going to pull off the first edition and the sky is the limit, as they say, for years to come for this tournament,” he added.
The tournament will host three matches per day with two day clashes and one night fixture. In the absence of the lights, one match will be moved to a second venue.
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