As excitement soars ahead of the 2024 ICC Men’s Twenty20 (T20) World Cup in the Caribbean and the United States next month, it’s hard to believe that just 21 years ago T20 cricket was virtually unheard of anywhere.

In fact, the very first official Twenty20 cricket matches were played in June 2003 in England by English County teams.

The idea, conceptualised by visionary cricket administrators in that country, sprung from an alarming fall-off in public and sponsorship support for longer formats of the game.

Packaged to last two-and-a-half to three hours, with the built-in necessity for innovative stroke play, big hitting, and super-quick scoring, T20 cricket targeted young people and was ideal for revenue-rich television.

By the time Antigua-based American billionaire investor Mr Allen Stanford started the Caribbean Stanford 20/20 series involving Caribbean national teams in 2006, the T20 format was already recognised as unstoppable.

Mr Stanford’s investment would evolve to his mind-boggling, winner-takes-all US$20-million T20 game between the Chris Gayle-led Stanford Super Stars (comprising West Indies players) and England in 2008, which the Caribbean side won.

Plans for more along that line melted away with the arrest and subsequent jailing of Mr Stanford by United States authorities on multi-billion, US-dollar fraud charges.

But by then cricket — driven by the T20 format, television and related audio-visuals — was among the fastest-growing sporting disciplines globally.

That extraordinary growth, complemented by its huge Indo-Asian migrant population, explains the reality that the United States — oblivious to cricket not so long ago — will co-host next month’s T20 showpiece with West Indies.

Inevitably, the fearlessly aggressive style of play in cash-rich T20s is impacting longer formats.

The entertaining, ultra-aggressive, so-called ‘Bazball’ batting style now cultivated by England in traditionally conservative Test matches is directly related to T20s.

Indeed, it is increasingly clear that the popular model for batting is now T20 cricket.

And, as avid watchers of the televised product can readily testify, the requirements for short, super-intense, white-ball format have led to much more athletic, stronger players who approach the game with a level of fearlessness never seen before.

For Jamaicans, still hurting from their Government’s curiously blinkered decision to spurn hosting rights for the upcoming World Cup, a consolation of sorts is that three of their countrymen were on Friday named in the West Indies 15-man squad for the tournament.

They are Captain Mr Rovman Powell and Messrs Andre Russell and Brandon King.

Also, we hear that acclaimed Jamaicans, iconic artiste Sean Paul; West Indies cricket heroine and former Captain Ms Stafanie Taylor; Mr Gayle, who is among the globe’s leading T20 batsmen ever; and Olympic Games eight-time gold medal winner Mr Usain Bolt were central to the recently released anthem for the Cricket World Cup.

Messrs Bolt and Gayle are also global ambassadors for the event.

Despite the much-lamented decline of West Indies cricket over the last three decades, it’s a matter of record that West Indies stunned the world, including their own fans, by winning the ICC T20 World Cup in 2012 and 2016.

Can the regional side fashion another stunner next month? Should they do so, Caribbean joy would know no bounds.