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[LosingNow]

I had earlier commented in http://www.cricketvoice.com/cricketforum2/index.php?topic=3935.msg49251#msg49251

The fact is the WICB is a doofus organization (if you want to call it an organization! Case in point, try calling them to get a ticket to a game -  you would think if a customer is trying to buy something from you, you would make it easy..the run around you get is astonishing...and 50% of the seats at grounds were empty.  Also, wait till the WC starts and you start hearing stories of logistical nightmares and fan complaints etc. Ex. St kitts as an island has 3000 total hotel rooms - it will be the staging center for Australia during group matches. The expected tourist traffic is 15-20K people on game days..where are they going to stay. How are they going to accomodate them..the facilities/resources are just not there and cannot be created easily. It is a very poor island. Ask any WICB official any q of this nature and you get a shrug!!)



Now this today ..
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/wc2007/content/current/story/252432.html

Wait for stories to appear soon on non-availability of adequate facilities for media, safety of stadiums etc.

How did the WICB get the world cup allocated to them to me is beyond me? I do not think the ICC did proper due diligence. They are just not and cannot be geared up  for organizing such an event.

Guys, if you are planning to go to any game or games, plan on all kinds of logistical challenges and paying exhorbitant prices on travel and accomodation.

[LosingNow]

Now Tony Cozier weighs in..looks like he agrees with most of the DGians. (Also notice, WICB incompetence ..it is a recurring observation)
---
Lara's cheap shot unworthy of great
by TONY COZIER in KINGSTON

FOR ANYONE ELSE in such a position of trust, responsibility and leadership, Brian Lara's third term as West Indies captain would now be at an end.

Instead, he has announced that he himself will decide if and when he goes, not an acquiescent board that has twice beseeched him to return.

Whatever his frustrations, Lara's repeated rantings in recent weeks against selections that did not accord to his opinions and pitches that did not take his fancy, were out of order and unbecoming of a revered and experienced cricketer recalled specifically to provide guidance to his young successors.

Deflected attention

They might have deflected attention away from his own tactical deficiencies on the field but, more critically, they acted as a distraction from the task at hand.

Regrettably, they simply gained in intensity until the festering boil burst on the last day of the final Test at Sabina on Sunday.

Lara chose the globally televised post-match presentation ceremony to embarrass West Indies cricket by repeating his assertion that his team had been undermined by "bad pitches and bad selection".

He elaborated at the subsequent media conference, implying that the pitch at Sabina Park had been prepared to suit India.

He was so consumed by such irritation that, while batting in the morning in an effort to win the Test, he pointedly turned in the direction of the groundstaff after Harbhajan Singh spun an off-break past his edge and cynically applauded on his bat.

It was a cheap gesture that demeaned one of the finest batsmen ever to grace the game. His dismissal soon after was not unexpected.

Lara later told the media that he would "revisit" his position as captain once the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) named its selectors at a meeting in a couple of weeks time. The message was clear. If they did not satisfy him, he would quit – as he has done twice before.

That he did not do so immediately tells a story. He has had his way with the WICB so repeatedly that he is confident it will once more submit to his ultimatum.

It might even appoint him sole selector and, in the bargain, supervisor of pitches.

After all, its new president, Ken Gordon, persuaded the great and the good of West Indies cricket three months ago to plead with him to once more come to its rescue.

And where was president Gordon while this latest crisis was brewing? What, indeed, was the WICB's response to the captain's shots fired across the bows of its selectors and its ground authorities?

Not a word

The answer to the first question is that the president was in Germany observing the football World Cup with reference to next year's cricket equivalent in the Caribbean.

The answer to the second is that the WICB has uttered not a word. It has been even more rudderless than ever since it had been without a chief executive officer after Roger Brathwaite jumped ship on April 30.

It is no wonder Lara can receive a letter on June 29, dated May 28, advising him he had been appointed a selector. That it was probably a typographical error was typical of the incompetence that has contributed to the decline of our cricket and to the reversal of the maxim that no man is greater than the game.

[LosingNow]

..and another one.
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/wc2007/content/current/story/252482.html
--
The Caribbean's massive undertaking

Andrew Miller

July 5, 2006


   
Chinatown at Trelawny: Jamaica's new stadium is reliant on immigrant workers © Andrew Miller

In the Caribbean, the magnitude of the task that awaits the region next March is slowly beginning to dawn. Too slowly for comfort, in the opinion of many observers. In seven months' time, the curtain will be raised on the ninth cricket World Cup, and at present the preparations are lagging behind on all fronts.

Yesterday Chris Dehring, the tournament director, finally confirmed what the rest of the world had already worked out - the influx of 100,000 cricket fans, on top of the usual peak-season demands of the Caribbean tourist industry, means that hotel rooms throughout the region will be at a premium. "We don't expect to satisfy the entire demand," he admitted candidly. "It is really going to be a challenge."

Contingency plans are urgently being sought, including the option of using a fleet of cruise-liners as auxiliary accommodation, but the logistics of the tournament are threatening to overwhelm the hosts. The rich heritage of West Indian cricket has long distracted from the ground-level reality: never before has such a high-profile tournament been strung across so many small - and in some cases, tiny - countries.

In total, nine sovereign states with a combined population of roughly seven million (which would barely place them in the world's top 100) are being asked to pull together to create the third biggest sporting event in the world. It is a huge undertaking for some of the world's smallest economies. In terms of Gross Domestic Product, five of the participants - Antigua, St Lucia, Guyana, Grenada and St Kitts & Nevis - are among the smallest 21 in the world, and only Trinidad & Tobago (89) features in the top 100 (out of 180).

The Caribbean's enduring popularity with tourists means that the poverty of much of the region has long been overlooked. The situation is not so very different from expecting Nigeria, Togo, Ivory Coast and Senegal to cut deals with their neighbours (and rivals) to host the Olympics or football World Cup. It is notable that neither of these events has yet taken place in Africa, and when the football does finally arrive in 2010, it will be held exclusively in resource-rich South Africa.


   
The Trelawny pitch is rolled for the first time, as Jamaica steps up preparations for the World Cup © Andrew Miller

Last week, Cricinfo was invited to Jamaica, where West Indies themselves and Pakistan are to be based for the event. The World Cup was the only topic on anyone's lips. Unfortunately, it was the wrong World Cup. At present, everything stops for football. Taxi drivers simply won't budge while a match is in progress, meetings have to be delayed to accommodate penalty shoot-outs. And all the while, the clock ticks down as vital preparations remain unaddressed.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the state of the island's venues. Last week, the disrepair at Sabina Park was showcased to the world as West Indies slipped to defeat in the fourth Test against India. A recent cement shortage, coupled with industrial action from the Jamaican workforce, meant that the great ground was just a husk of its former (and future) self. Only the George Headley stand and the Kingston Cricket Club pavilion were still in operation - which amounts to barely one third of the projected 21,000 capacity.

And further to the north, there is the Greenfields Stadium at Trelawny. Cut from virgin scrubland and perched scenically on the top of a hill near the coast, it is the venue for the tournament's opening ceremony and a selection of warm-up matches. Greenfields is intended to become a prime sporting location, but at present it is just another building site, served by a single dirt track and presided over by a clutch of 110 Chinese labourers, in whose hands the island's entire construction project seems to have been placed.

China's involvement in the Caribbean is controversial but far-reaching, and as the clock ticks down, increasingly essential. As Lyndon James, the venue manager at Greenfields, admitted, their work ethic is "very different" to that of the Jamaican population, as demonstrated by the countdown board outside their on-site compound, declaring "xxx days [sic] hard work left".

"Hopefully some of their attitude will rub off on our guys," added James, although seeing as the interaction between the two camps was virtually nil, there seemed little prospect of that. The state of the wicket was none too encouraging either. In March, the Jamaica Gleaner reported optimistically that the square could be ready for matches as early as June.


   
What will the legacy be when the sun sets on the Caribbean World Cup? © Andrew Miller

In fact, July was just days away when we saw it being rolled for the first time, under the supervision of Sabina Park's groundsman, Pat Gordon - arguably the least relaxed Jamaican on the island. "We won't know what it'll be like until we play on it," he stated baldly. Other well-placed sources confided that the ground is so remote that, after the tournament has been done and dusted, it may never again host another cricket match.

The saddest aspect of the tournament preparations is that there seems to be little attempt to engage the local population in the activities - although seeing as they are sure to be priced out of most of the matches, it is hardly surprising that such apathy is taking hold. A Category 1 ticket to matches at St Kitts costs US$420, roughly two months' wages for the average blue-collar worker, while the ICC regulations stipulate that Kingston Cricket Club members have to pay for entry to their own pavilion at Sabina Park, a move that has been met with predictable resentment.

Perversely, what the region needs is to be cut some slack. The Caribbean lifestyle is as languid as it gets, and for all the current frustrations, it is this inimitable trait that will provide the World Cup with its best and most reliable failsafe. "No problem!" is Jamaica's catchphrase, as reprinted on countless souvenir T-shirts. For those who do sample the country's hotels, beaches, cocktails and nightlife, the experience promises to be unforgettable.

What is less clear, however, is the extent of the legacy that will remain when the eyes of the world are averted once again. At present, there is little excitement, little involvement, and little evidence that the third-greatest show on earth is coming to town. It'll be alright on the night, as these things usually are, but will the Caribbean reinvent itself in the manner that Germany has done through the football World Cup this past month? On the current evidence, the answer has to be "no".

Andrew Miller is UK editor of Cricinfo

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