Oakland, Florida, Los Angeles are some of the cities that have been recced by the ICC Venue inspection team as prospective centres for the 2024 T20 World Cup jointly hosted by United States and West Indies, informed USA Cricket president Atul Rai.
"Preferably it will be held in the USA considering that India's T20 games against West Indies in Florida were complete sell out," Rai told PTI in an interview.
"The ICC events team headed by Chris Tetley had travelled up and down back in May when they inspected a lot of grounds across various cities. Few weeks back (December), they again came back and narrowed their search," Rai added.
"The ICC wants to give us at least 18 months time to get all the venues ready and functional for a global event. During the last inspection, they checked out the Oaklands Coliseum in San Francisco and a ground in Los Angeles (Woodley Cricket Field). They also looked at grounds in Dallas and Texas," said Rai.
"If we look at the ground in Los Angeles, India A had travelled here to play five games against Australia. It's a proper cricket ground with big boundaries and also spectator capacity is pretty good," Rai stated.
"New York is also a possibility as there is a huge population that follows the sport. Two decades back, the then Mayor of NYC had claimed that one out of every eight New Yorker is connected to cricket," he said.
Rai said in another six to eight weeks time, ICC will intimate them about venues selected and how many matches will be held in the USA.
"If matches are held in West Coast then they will probably start evening local time and aired early morning in India. If it's east coast then it could be evening India time and morning local time. ICC will have final call although they would take our inputs," said Rai.
Cricket News: Oakland, Florida, Los Angeles are some of the cities that have been recced by the ICC Venue inspection team as prospective centres for the 2024 T20 Wo
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