Ramson expresses displeasure with teams playing T20 World Cup games in Guyana

Sport Minister Charles Ramson jr., while being content with the number of matches allocated to Guyana for the upcoming International Cricket Council (ICC) men’s T20 World Cup in June, is dissatisfied with the quality of matches scheduled for Guyana as those pertain to the teams involved.
The World Cup will bowl off on Saturday, June 1, with a clash between USA and Canada in Dallas, Texas, and Guyana will host the first game in the Caribbean on June 2, which involves the West Indies coming up against Papua New Guinea at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence, East Bank Demerara.
Thereafter, Guyana will host four other Group C matches, featuring West Indies, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea and Uganda. This aspect is what perturbs the Sport Minister, who expressed his displeasure at his recent year-end press conference held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) at Liliendaal, ECD.

“It’s not the number of matches that I’m not satisfied with; I’m not satisfied with the teams, based on the Groups that were assigned to Guyana,” Ramson jr. clarified.
He went on to explain, “When the Government looks to get for the country an international tournament like this, you want the big- ticket games coming to the country; and even if you don’t get all of the big- ticket games, you still want at least a few, so that persons from all around the world will look at that and say, ‘I want to go and see those games’. Outside of the locals, we’re going to be excited for cricket; international cricket, regardless.”
Continuing to express his frustration, the Sport Minister shared, “But when you examine who West Indies are playing, or where the big names like the Indias, the Pakistans, the Australias et cetera, where they are playing, a lot of the games for India and Pakistan went to United States of America. So, now we have to compete with, on the market share for cricket, we’re now competing with the US.
“So, it’s not just about the number of games. We knew in advance what were the likely outcomes if we were to succeed on the number of games that we would get,” he reiterated.

As such, the Minister voiced his hopes that the ICC would pay keener attention to how the allocation of matches can impact smaller territories among host countries.
Ramson Jr. opined, “I think ICC has to be cognizant of the fact that we are small territories, that these types of events make a big impact to the country in many ways, some quantifiable, some non- quantifiable. So, the type of games that are assigned to smaller types of territories are very important for them.”
Following the opening game at Providence, Afghanistan will battle Uganda on June 3; Papua New Guinea comes up against Uganda on June 5; New Zealand and Afghanistan go head-to-head on June 7, while West Indies go into action on June 8.
In addition, Guyana will play host to the first semifinal games of this year’s T20 World Cup, scheduled for June 26th. The Word Cup will conclude on June 30th.