Providence undergoes 2nd inspection for T20 World Cup

High-level officials from Cricket West Indies (CWI) and the International Cricket Council (ICC) earlier this week graced the Guyana National Stadium at Providence, East Bank Demerara (EBD) for another inspection of the venue that is set to play host to the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024.
The first such inspection was hosted back in April. Representing the ICC was Senior Manager of Operations, Tulsa Woodham while the tournament’s Head of Operations, KJ Singh was also on hand to share about the inspection.
While explaining some of the areas that the inspection team has focused on this visit, Singh related that while the Stadium meet some requirements, more needs to be done to compensate for the advances in technology since its construction in 2007.
Singh divulged, “Today we’re looking at aspects of hospitality, ticketing, media and broadcast, and broadcast is bringing a big contingent with them. These stadiums were built in 2007 with a particular world event, it’s almost a decade and a half that has progressed. In addition to that, as Tulsa mentioned, we hosted the 2010 World Cup in the Caribbean, the operational overlay is much less than now.”

“The advances of technology and innovation in the game right now ranges from spider cams to digital operations and I remember last year when we hosted this; in 2019, we had about five digital operations staff. This year, it’s going to be 20. So, if we keep adding on those spaces, it’ll be a major requirement for the stadium to find them,” Singh said, as he revealed that Guyana has met a lot of the requirements for operational spaces.
Nonetheless, he reported that they were progressing well, ahead of next year’s June 4-30 World Cup.
“So far, we’re progressing well. We’re looking forward to fully operationalising this Stadium for the event next year,” Singh said.
The Head of Operations went on to share what the next batch of inspectors would be focusing on when they get to Guyana, with those procedures set to wrap up by April 2024.
“There are multiple people coming down in phases. The next phase would be pitch and outfield consultant Andy Atkinson from the ICC, he’ll be coming down to do a curators workshop in January and then right after that, it would be David Moska from the ICC and his team, coming down to deal with security, operations and planning,” Singh informed.
He went on to reveal, “We have been meeting with Caricom Impacts and also CARPHA on safety and medical. So, all of that now, pulling that together, just to devise the regional plan, national plan and then event plan and having that seamlessly merge together to ensure we have a safe and successful tournament.”
Findings and suggestions will be compiled into a report and handed over to the Local Organising Committee and the Government of Guyana to ensure Providence’s readiness for the global showpiece.