By Akeem Greene
While their opponent is not yet known, the certainty is that Guyana Jaguars will play their first match of the next year’s Regional Four-Day Championship away from home.
This was confirmed by Cricket West Indies (CWI) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Johnny Grave, on Tuesday.
Grave, who at the time was speaking on Barbados radio programme, Mason and Guest, indicated that plans are still on stream for the restart of the First-Class season in early February 2022, and it will see three franchises having to travel at the start.
“The plan is for the West Indies Championship to restart in February with teams hopefully travelling and we are going to anchor, we think, three teams at home and three teams would travel and reverse that for the second round,” Grave explained.
“COVID is still here and amongst us and we and don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, there might be spikes post-Christmas, but that certainly is the plan as we speak here.”
According to Grave, the current plan is to have Barbados Pride, Windward Volcanoes and Jamaica Scorpions play at home, with Jaguars, Leeward Hurricanes and Trinidad and Tobago Red Force travelling across those three territories for the first three rounds.
After then, games would shift to Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and either St. Kitts or Antigua, as the previous three ‘host’ franchises would be travelling.
The CEO indicated that due to Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis and Trinidad and Tobago hosting ICC Under-19 50-over World Cup matches from January 14 to February 5, 2022, it was not feasible for those territories to host the first round of Four-Day matches.
Earlier this month, CWI Director of Cricket, Jimmy Adams, re-emphasised the need for more importance to be placed on red-ball cricket and assured that the Regional Four-Day Championship will resume in early February 2022, after close to a two-year hiatus, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The plans as they stand now is that we begin early February and play a minimum of five rounds of Four-Day cricket between February and April-May,” the Director of Cricket explained.
