NIGEL Camacho, president of Queen’s Park Cricket Club, has acknowledged that it would be tough to ensure that international matches are staged at the Queen’s Park Oval, St Clair when England tour the Caribbean.
The Cricket West Indies (CWI), on Monday, announced the schedule for England’s tours (T20 International and Tests) of the Caribbean next year.
The West Indies and England will play the five-match T20 International series at the Kensington Oval, Barbados from January 22-30. And the three-Test series will be staged in March, in Antigua, Barbados and Grenada.
Camacho, the Queen’s Park president, said in a telephone interview on Monday, “From a Queen’s Park perspective, we would like to get as much cricket as possible. Since ‘94 or ‘98, I would say that the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) has put pressure on Cricket West Indies to have the tours to suit the English touring companies, that bring the travelling fans, and most of those touring fans will cater towards the beach destinations.”
Camacho, one of the founding members of the famed Trini Posse, continued, “We would like to have some cricket at the Queen’s Park Oval for England. Since 1930, we hosted a number of Test matches all through the 80s, but things have changed since World Cup 2007 when they were 11 venues in the Caribbean.
“England is a little bit harder for us, to bring the tourists to Trinidad,” he added.
During the TT Government’s budget presentation on October 4, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said, “We are considering the TT Cricket Board’s interest in hosting some games during England’s tour of the West Indies in 2022.”
Camacho acknowledged, “We would try, but we need the Government to participate. In this particular situation, the Government were interested in participating but we got the (2022 ICC) Under-19 Cricket World Cup in Trinidad, well part of it.
“We’ve been promised India later in the year, so we are banking on the fact that we would be hosting some India matches.”
The Queen’s Park president added, “We would have loved to have hosted England, (but) as a private club, this was out of our hands. We can’t bid to Cricket West Indies directly to host the Test matches, it has to come through the Government. If the country’s government is not planning to bid for the England games, then we would not be getting games at the Queen’s Park Oval. I don’t know if that’s going to change.”
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