The landmark decision on the part of ICC to provide T20I status to all its members (Full members and Associates) could become the major boost for growth of the sport in the Pacific countries if included in the 2019 Pacific Games, set to be held in Samoa in Jul 2019.
Samoa were given the hosting rights for the games after Tonga withdrew itself from hosting the games citing economic constraints. Samoa are already scheduled to host ICC East Asia Pacific sub-regional qualifiers for WorldT20 in 2020 and if included in the games as a discipline in 2019 by the Apia games organising committee, Samoa could very well host it’s first International cricket event in both Men’s and Women’s categories.
Cricket was part of the 28 disciplines in the 2015 edition of the games held in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea in which Vanuatu won the Gold medal in the Men’s category and Samoa won the Gold medal in the Women’s category. Six countries participated in the Women’s category while four countries took part in the Men’s category.
If Cricket does get included among the 12 sports disciplines out of the 23 optional ones, it will be interesting to see if Australia and New Zealand would send their Men’s or Women’s squad to take part in the games as all T20I matches will be counted towards Global T20I rankings, if decreed that way by the ICC in mid-2019.
