Bridgetown, Barbados, April 17 – (www.bcacricket.org) - A rare opportunity for cricket fans in the United States to listen to live ball-by-ball radio coverage of the 2010 ICC World T20 championship in the West Indies by way of the Line & Length Network, ESPN Radio and the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA), has been warmly embraced by key personalities.

At a Press conference at the BTA headquarters on Friday, Barry Wilkinson, the executive director of Line & Length Network, disclosed that One Caribbean Radio 97.9 HD (www.onecaribbeanradio.com) had taken “a big and bold move” to broadcast all 27 matches of the April 30 to May 16 tournament.

It will be the first time the station, which is heard by thousands of listeners in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is dedicating its programming to cricket, Wilkinson said.

Chairman of One Caribbean Radio, Edmond Brathwaite, was ecstatic about the venture.

“There are thousands of Asians here (in the U.S), thousands of West Indians and other persons from different backgrounds that have been calling the station asking how they can listen to the World Cup in the Caribbean,” Brathwaite said.

“ESPN Cricket Radio, through the Channel 2 Group are the Rights Holders for this region and I got a call from Barry Wilkinson offering me the coverage. They have been contracted to produce the commentary, manage and negotiate on behalf of Channel 2 and we have struck a deal.”

The venture has received strong support from Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy, ICC World T20 Tournament Director Robert Bryan and Manager of Sports Tourism at the BTA, Gregory Armstrong, who is a former Barbados and Glamorgan County Club fast bowler.

“To be able to come on board for a relatively small sum and to get all of that coverage we are going to get, the West Indians that are interested in cricket, the Australians, the English, those from Asia, all of them will tune in, I think it is really a good deal for Barbados. It is money well spent and we are very happy to come on board,” Sealy said.

“I was very happy to hear Mr. Brathwaite mention the fact that the Australians and the English will be tuning in because what we have been doing in the past couple of cricket tours is that we have been looking at, for example, when the Australian tour was here, we did go after the Australians in the New York area very aggressively with some success. We had a number of groups coming out of the New York area. That’s another market for us for the future that we need to foster and develop.

“So I think its good that One Caribbean will be taking the broader view and not just restricting the coverage merely to the West Indies, even though we know that first and foremost that’s who are going after,” Sealy said.

Bryan remarked: “We support strongly the fact that One Caribbean Radio will be bringing it to the audience not fortunate to be here in Barbados for the tournament and I believe that we now understand what the theme ‘Bring It’ means.

“Everybody has a role to play in Bringing It and if we all bring what we can to be that table, there is absolutely no doubt in our minds that this event is going to be a very successful one and will establish the region, if it hasn’t done already, that we are capable like anybody else to host, stage and manage world events of the highest level.”

Armstrong said: “I think that this partnership really affords us many wonderful opportunities. First of all the continuity of the sports tourism thrust, it allows us to broaden our listenership in the existing market.

“It allows us also to target some of the new territories by way of the radio stations in the programme, cement our position as the premier sports tourism destination year-round. We are also aware that the ICC is going to be looking at developing cricket in North America. And so I see this opportunity as very timely as well where it allows us to reach our objectives again by developing the sports tourism niche,” Armstrong asserted.

It was also disclosed that among the commentary team would be former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd and his team-mate and fellow Guyanese Colin Croft, former India opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar.

Matches in the World T20 championship will be played on Guyana, St. Lucia and Barbados, which is also hosting eight of the Super Eights as well as the men’s and women’s finals.