Two weeks into the sale of tickets for next year’s ICC World Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies, the tournament director says he’s fairly happy with the response of Caribbean fans.

Currently, the sale of tickets for next year’s 20/20 bash is into the second phase, with interested spectators in the rest of the world now being able to make purchases for the April 30-May 16 event.

Previously, only fans in this region were able to buy tickets.

’We are still looking at the final numbers, (but) they went reasonably well... Fourteen days out, yes we are quite pleased,’ Robert Bryan told the Express on Tuesday.

At the launch of the event in Barbados on October 31, the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the tournament organisers stressed the need for the event to have a Caribbean flavour.

ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat said then: ’We recognise the unique nature of cricket in the West Indies and we want this to be a cricket tournament with a genuine West Indian feel. This is another wonderful opportunity for the West Indian countries to prove again their ability to stage a major world event right here in the Caribbean.’

Asked to quantify the sales thus far, Bryan said: ’Generally, we are in the teens of the total percentage. I would decribe it as a fairly good start compared with 2007 (at the same stage for the 50-over World Cup also staged in the West Indies).’

Barbados, Guyana, St Lucia and St Kitts/Nevis will host 20/20 games, with St Kitts/Nevis staging the preliminary women’s matches. The men’s and women’s semi-finals will be played in St Lucia, while both finals will be staged in Barbados.

And in terms of the area where sales have been best thus far, Bryan said: ’I would say we’ve been very pleased with the response in Guyana from what we are seeing.’

And among the most popular tickets in general are those for matches involving home team West Indies.

Bryan also said his team was now in a position to adjust strategy.

’We still think we are running against the trend of people waiting...(But) we are now able to see what matches are selling more than others. Maybe those numbers may be reflecting a lack of public attention. We do have that information now, so it allows time to market and become more focused on what we are doing.’