The Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TTCB) will be putting in a very competitive bid to host next year's Caribbean Twenty20 tournament, which will feature 12 teams and be played between January 7-20.

The bidding process for the right to host the 2013 event is ongoing and Baldath Mahabir, TTCB director on the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and chairman of the TTCB marketing committee, said they will be aiming to host the entire tournament.

Mahabir said there are two packages the West Indies territories will be bidding on--one to host the bulk of the preliminary round matches and the other to host the semi-finals and final, along with some matches from the preliminary round.

He revealed that T&T will be putting forward competitive bids for both packages in the hope of winning the right to host the entire tournament.

"We are hoping to get both or at least one," Mahabir told the Express yesterday.

"We feel we are capable of successfully hosting the tournament...it is about two weeks before Carnival (February 11 and 12) so we are hoping to incorporate the tournament into the Carnival experience as well," he added.

T&T co-hosted the inaugural tournament in 2010, with Guyana winning the final which was played at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain in front of thousands of spectators.

Barbados were the other co-hosts in 2010, with the preliminary round matches being played at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown.

Antigua and Barbados co-hosted the last two editions of the tournament, which were won by Trinidad and Tobago.

T&T were set to host the preliminary stage of the 2012 tournament, but due to the purported high cost of renting the Oval, the venue was shifted to Antigua, with the final being played in Barbados.

Mahabir said the TTCB has been in close consultation with the Queen's Park Cricket Club and insisted that they do not expect any issues with the cost of renting the Oval.

He also insisted that the venue will be available for the duration of the competition and that the TTCB would also be talking with the Government to be partners in the hosting of the event.

The deadline for submission of bids is 4 p.m. on August 21 and the TTCB should know if it was successful in its bid by September 1.

According to a WICB media release, the newly-formed WICB International Fixtures Committee (IFC) will review the bids and make the final selection of venues.

The committee will focus on seven key criteria in reviewing the bids, including contributions of the host to the event; the cost of hosting matches; the potential revenue opportunities; the strength of commitment; the country's record of honoring commitments; the quality of event management during WICB tournaments; and venue readiness.

The release also stated that the WICB requires that venues must have international standard lighting to facilitate night matches and at least one replay screen to be favourably considered for hosting the Caribbean T20.

The release said that the 2013 tournament will feature 12 teams as opposed to the ten-team format used in the last two editions and that matches will be televised on ESPN Caribbean and by other select broadcasters around the world.