The third ‘Blind Cricket World Cup’ will take place in Islamabad, Pakistan between December 4th to 16th, 2006. This was announced by the ‘World Blind Cricket Council’, recently.

The opening ceremony of the tournament will be held on December 3rd, World Disability Day and the finals will be played on December 16th. The tournament was scheduled to take place in South Africa but after organisational problems Pakistan stepped in to host the event.

All eight member teams, namely, Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and new comers West Indies are expected to take part in the tournament.

As mentioned, the West Indies’ blind cricket team will take part in the world cup for the first time ever. Blind cricket teams across the region are stepping up preparations for the ’West Indies Cricket Championship for the Blind’ in Barbados this July. This championship will be a platform for the selecting the team that will represent West Indies at the world cup in Pakistan.

Five teams, Barbados (host), Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica and the Windward Islands will play the weeklong tournament starting from July 4, 2006.

Organisers of the championship are certainly encouraged by the teams’ build-up to their tournament. “In most of the countries the readiness is quite high in terms of the actual teams doing a lot of training, a lot of groundwork (preparation),” said, Bhawani Persad, General Secretary of the ‘West Indies Cricket Council for the Blind.’ He added, “There is a high level of involvement right now and all the teams are gearing up for this big event.”

Prior to the championship, a one-week training camp in St Lucia (Windward Islands) will be held from May 29, 2006, during which they will play two friendly matches against Barbados.