Cricket lights up New York’s iconic Empire State Building to launch Trophy Tour for Men’s T20 World Cup 2024

New York: West Indies legend and one of the most renowned players in white-ball cricket, Chris Gayle along with the USA’s Ali Khan lit up New York’s Empire State Building to launch the Trophy Tour for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024. The Global Trophy Tour will visit 15 countries, including all nine host venues in the countdown to the historic ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 hosted in the West Indies and USA.

ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 Trophy Tour started on Monday with two-time champion Chris Gayle and USA star Ali Khan lighting up the iconic skyscraper as fans countdown to the biggest global T20 cricket event ever.

An official ceremony to launch the Trophy Tour was held at the Empire State Building, where Gayle and Khan had the honour of pulling the lever down to light up New York’s most iconic building in the navy and pink colours of the event. Sitting atop the 381-metre skyscraper was the prize all 20 teams will be competing for across the West Indies and USA from 1-29 June, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Trophy, the ICC informed in a release on Tuesday.

Following the huge demand of more than 3 million ticket applications in the public ballot, additional tickets have been released to 51 of 55 matches, including to fixtures where allocations were previously exhausted.

The event marks the first time an ICC World Cup will be held in the USA, including eight matches at the brand new, state-of-the-art modular 34,000-capacity stadium in Nassau County, New York.

The newly renovated existing venues, Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium in Dallas and Broward County Stadium in Lauderhill will each host four fixtures. Co-hosts West Indies have a rich history in T20 cricket, having won the T20 World Cup twice, with popular Caribbean tourist destinations, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago all hosting matches.

The ‘Out of this World’ Trophy Tour will reach 15 countries across four continents as it visits iconic sporting teams and stadia, famous landmarks, and legendary cricketers, while also giving fans the chance to get a glimpse of T20 cricket’s biggest global prize.

In addition to visiting all host venues across the West Indies and USA, the Trophy will also visit emerging Americas cricket countries Argentina, Brazil and Canada – enabling new fans to connect with what will be a landmark event in the region.

Fans can follow Trophy Tour from wherever they are via ICC’s social channels and t20worldcup.com.

ICC General Manager, Marketing and Communications, Claire Furlong said: “With less than three months to go until the first ball of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, there is huge anticipation for what will be a historic event for cricket in the Americas.

“As we countdown to the World Cup, the Trophy Tour provides fans with the opportunity to be part of the event in locations across the globe. The Tour will travel extensively across the Americas, igniting the passion of both new and existing fans to share in the excitement of T20 cricket’s pinnacle global event coming to the region and what better way to kick it off than by lighting up one of the world’s most iconic buildings in one of the world’s most iconic cities,” she said.

“Cricket has more than a billion fans and we want to give as many people as possible the opportunity to get up close with the trophy that will be lifted by the winning captain in Barbados on 29 June,” Claire Furlong added.

The Trophy Tour Schedule for the first month is:

March 18-20: New York

March 21-23: Houston, Grand Prairie and Dallas

March 26-27: Buenos Aires

March 28-29: Sao Paulo

April 3-4: Jamaica

April 13-14: Barbados

April 17-18: Antigua and Barbuda

April 19-20: Saint Lucia

–IANS