The last three months have been very hectic for the Caribbean Island of Barbados and Antigua. It was only November last year when it was announced that Antigua and Barbados would be joint hosting the 2011 Caribbean Twenty20 Cricket tournament. Inevitably, Cricket fans from around the globe rushed to get on Antigua holidays. But the turn around for a January tournament must have put a fair bit of stress on its organisers and participant teams. In 2010, the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament was held in July, barely sixth months before this attempt.

The repositioning has helped to redefine the fledgling tournament which is now the first Twenty20 Cricket tournament of the year. Moving the tournament also meant that the substantial weather problems experienced in the 2010 tournament were unlikely to be repeated. Three were entirely abandoned due to heavy rain and further three were cut short for the same reasons. This was not entirely successful, as the 18th January match between Jamaica and British guest team Somerset was called off after six of twenty-overs per side. As visitors, Somerset were understandably frustrated to come crashing out of the tournament in these conditions, not least because it meant cutting short their Barbados holidays.

Though only in its second year, the Caribbean Twenty20 tournament is already considered important enough to set teams up for the Twenty20 Champions League. Here too, this factor influenced the rescheduling of the tournament. The schedule in 2010 gave less than two months for the winner of the Caribbean tournament to prepare for the Champion’s League. Arguably, this is why Guyana crashed out of the later in the group stages.

But off to a marginally rocky start, the Caribbean tournament is otherwise a brilliant ambassador for the sport. Twenty20 cricket has proved itself to be a valid new direction for the relatively inaccessible sport of cricket, even though at an average four hours it still hasn’t been pared down to the size of the most internationally popular team sports. Who knows where Cricket will go once Twenty20 becomes an internationally recognised sport. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d like to go on Vietnam holidays should anyone be willing to introduce the sport to the Vietnamese.