‘Amazing’ ExxonMobil Guyana GSL a grand success

From a more than 14,000-capacity crowd at the Guyana National Stadium, to bumper-to-bumper traffic on the East Bank Demerara carriageway and droves of supporters pouring into the venue, the ExxonMobil Guyana Global Super League (GSL) T20, in just its second year, greatly mirrored the fanfare and craze of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) in Guyana.
Describing the cricket and energy as ‘incredible’, GSL Director Jamie Stewart had words of high praise for this year’s tournament, especially the final showdown between eventual champions Guyana Amazon Warriors and Bangladesh’s Rangpur Riders.

A beaming Stewart expressed, “The cricket Gods have been kind to us, it’s been an amazing tournament. I think anyone who watched in Guyana, who was at the Stadium or watching around the world, I mean, what an amazing day it was today, sold out, incredible cricket, incredible energy. We’ve spoken all along about this event showing everyone what Guyana is all about and you know, I think we saw that today with an amazing capacity crowd, amazing images on the TV and fortunately, the right result for the Guyana fans but we’re already looking forward to next year.”

Already looking ahead to next year’s third edition of the tournament, Stewart is focused on locking down an equally lucrative window as this year.
“I think we live and we learn, its going to be a step jump every year, we’ve seen how much its grown from year 1 to year 2 and I think year 3; we hopefully achieve the same sort of step jump. We’ve already been talking about where can we find a window. Any cricket fan probably knows how much cricket there is going on in the world and finding the window for next year when we’re going to play is a challenge,” Stewart explained.
He added, “The feedback from the teams have been amazing, I think that word of mouth will get around, all around the world and I think we’re going to have teams queuing up to come to Guyana. Already a couple of the teams that have played GSL are talking about doing their pre- seasons in Guyana, which is an interesting benefit from hosting the event.”
Quizzed about the World Club Championship which was recently given the go ahead by ICC and will likely return in 2026, Stewart noted that its resurgence is expected but envisioned barriers for them with finding a suitable window.
“It makes sense for global cricket to sort of do a Champions League at some point, but it’s very difficult to schedule this invitational, which doesn’t take very long at all; as you know, it’s 8 days, and it’s hard to schedule that. We don’t have access to all the players because there’s a lot of cricket going on,” he noted.
The GSL Director further reasoned, “If you were to do a fully fledged club championship, if the ICC were to do it, you’ve got to find a window. That, to me, seems the biggest challenge because they’ll want all the best players playing. You’ve already got IPL taking a big window, you’ve got ICC events taking a big window. So, I think it’s a good idea for cricket to have that but how soon you can schedule that, that’s a big challenge I think.”
The Guyana Amazon Warriors pulled off a 32-run victory on Friday last to lift their first ExxonMobil GSL Trophy; dethroning inaugural champions Rangpur Riders of Bangladesh who won the tournament last year.