No regional T20 before World Twenty20 - Ernest Hilaire

Ernest Hilaire, the newly elected chief executive of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), has said it won't be possible to conduct a regional Twenty20 tournament to give the West Indies players sufficient practice before the ICC World Twenty20 in April-May, in the Caribbean.

Hilaire said West Indies' international schedule, starting with the tour of Australia this month, was too packed to accommodate a tournament.

"I think it will be difficult between now and the tournament in April next year to have a Twenty20 tournament," Hilaire said at the launch of the World Twenty20's ticket sales in Barbados. "We will not have a Twenty20 tournament before the World Cup because there is already a schedule of matches up to that time.

"We travel to Australia in the next couple of weeks and return at the end of the year. We start from January our regional four-day tournament that would last until the end of March. In between that, we will be traveling to Australia for the one-day (bilateral) series and then we host Zimbabwe and there is virtually no space for us to have a Twenty20 tournament."

Hilaire however was confident that the West Indies team will be sufficiently prepared for the world tournament. West Indies end their tour of Australia with the two Twenty20 internationals before taking on Zimbabwe at home for a limited-overs series in March.

"We will be playing Twenty20 matches in Australia, as well as against Zimbabwe, so you do not need to have a regional Twenty20 tournament for the team to prepare. We are trying to ensure the team plays enough matches leading up to the World Twenty20."

The Stanford 20/20 was the only recognised tournament in the Caribbean, which ran for two seasons before it was cancelled after Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire who bankrolled the tournament, was arrested on charges of fraud. Deryck Murray, the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board president, recently proposed a West Indies Twenty20 Championship at the end of the year, to help choose the best side in the region, who will then go onto represent West Indies in future editions of the Champions League Twenty20. T&T, the winners of the Stanford 20/20, qualified for the Champions League in India and reached the finals.

Hilaire assured that the board will discuss the possibilities of hosting a regional tournament in future.

"One of the things we are doing at the WICB now is a schedule of cricket until 2012 where we will actually create slots in the annual calendar to allow for our three regional tournaments - the four-day, the one-day and a Twenty20 tournament - as well as ensuring we meet all our international commitments, creating space for each territorial board to have their own tournaments. The challenge we are facing now is that there is so much cricket, and cricket is becoming so attractive for cricketers themselves, that we absolutely need to establish that schedule."