Our CWC2007 Preparations
Caribbean governments must be heavily criticised for their total failure to have first sought a thorough understanding of just what they were getting into when they were asked to support the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) in hosting the Cricket World Cup 2007 (CWC2007). One can safely say that the political leaders who make up the Caricom Heads of government all seem to have been lost on the historic role that Cricket has played in the liberation of our peoples in the Caribbean.
Many of them may well recall the years of struggle to gain international recognition in the game of the former colonial master, England, even as the region sought to fight off the lingering consequences of four centuries of slavery and colonialism.
But that is not in and of itself sufficient reason to justify the giddy-headedness that has overtaken them all in pursuit of the hosting of the Cricket World Cup 2007.
The current buzz around the region over the past several months and even now relates to our general tardiness in the construction industry and our almost total and embarrassing inability to adhere to deadlines.
Even as the evidence suggests that in many instances patrons will probably get some wet paint on their clothes during the CWC2007 matches, the leaders of the respective Local Organising Committees (LOC) are claiming otherwise, blinded perhaps by their own over-inflated sense of importance. Their heads seem buried in the sand.
Had the same course of action taken by the Caricom Heads been pursued by our regional business leaders they would have been dubbed incompetent and lacking in their own understanding of the fundamental principles of management by their respective governments.
But how dare we refer to our political leaders disparagingly?
They have merely been given to an appreciation of the game of Cricket that defies logic and our commonsense understanding of how business is conducted.
It also seems that in respect of the CWC2007 the Caribbean governments appear to be bearing expenses of an order that previous hosts did not have to undertake.
For example, we need to know whether ever before in Cricket World Cup history the ICC ever mandated warm-up matches organised by the host. Was it not the case hitherto for the various competing countries to organise their own warm-up matches and at their own expense?
If that was the case why did the ICC seek to change it when the event is being held in the Caribbean and where travel is so expensive and the economies so disparate in terms of general well-being?
What were our governments thinking?
Were they merely interested in bragging rights?
Perhaps it is a case of the authorities being hopeful that once the facilities are provided the sport of cricket will suddenly revive itself.
Where are the development plans of the West Indies Cricket Board?
What has been the impact of the strategies the WICB has been seeking to implement for the salvation of the sport in this Caribbean?
Many of the governments have been lost in a sort of cricket wilderness where they have forgotten that there is something known as reality.
Heavy capital expenditures
There may well be reason enough to believe that even now, before the commencement of the World Cup, many of our Caribbean Governments are unaware of precisely why they would have committed themselves to some of the heady capital expenditures they have made.
Perhaps it is a matter of pride or rather a matter of shame.
Our political leaders are embarrassed at the almost obscene expenditures in which they have immersed their respective countries without adequate advance planning.
Many of the governments have been unable to explain just what has happened.
Here in St Vincent and the Grenadines we have engaged in the development of facilities without an adequate cost-benefit analysis.
We have spent millions on a sport that has shown no real penchant for survival and where other sporting disciplines are on the rise but do not receive the requisite attention.
Here at home, we may well have engaged in some wasteful expenditures.
Would the LOC inform us whether or not we were required to lay the same surface for the entire playing fields being used for training and the actual warm-up games or were we not instead only expected to guarantee that the wickets were of the same nature?
While we were busy spending monies to ensure that all playing fields being used were of the same expensive nature others in the region merely made certain that the wickets were of the same nature. Check out the playing field at La Sagesse in Grenada as an example.
The overlay
Almost all of the countries hosting the Cricket World Cup have found themselves with relatively heavy expenditures on what is termed Overlays.
The peoples of the region may not all have been exposed to precisely how some of the expenditures of the various organising committees have been made.
The Overlays are very expensive.
We see them as the large white tents located on Arnos Vale II. They are frightfully expensive.
Would the Local Organising Committee tell this nation just what are the costs involved in the renting of the fanciful tents that are now located at Arnos Vale II?
Why is it that the Vincentian public, whose taxpayers’ monies are being used to cover our costs related to the hosting of warm-up matches, are not being exposed to the detailed breakdown of the financial expenditures for the different components dealt with here?
One of the considerations that bother Vincentians is that if they do cost a pretty penny why did we not invest in securing more permanent structures to satisfy the requirements of the World Cup and which could serve us well in future undertakings.
Another consideration is why was it deemed necessary for us to have so many when we are merely hosting warm-up matches?
At one stage we were of the view that Arnos Vale II was one of the facilities being significantly upgraded with the same type of surface as the other grounds being used during the time the teams are here for the warm-up matches.
Suddenly, however, we are witnessing the mushrooming of the overlay on Arnos Vale II to such an extent that it is virtually impossible for us to see that arena experience any significant change from what it was previously.
For years the netball fraternity here cautioned patrons and players alike to desist from walking on the surface of the four netball courts at Arnos Vale with high heel shoes. This was because the cost of the surface was high and that it needed adequate maintenance.
Today it is heart-rending to witness that a massive tent has been placed on one of the courts and that there are several large bolts inserted into the foundation to maintain the structure.
At the conclusion of the CWC2007, the Netball court at Arnos Vale will be a disaster or approaching that state at the very least. One is not certain about the availability of financial resources to do the extensive repairs that will be necessary if the facility is to regain some of its former stature.
It appears that the National Sports Council, under whose management the nation’s sports facilities (with the exception of the Victoria Park) fall, may not have been appropriately informed of the precise nature of what was going to be done with the Netball court and that some of its members were simply amazed and shocked when they saw it.
It should be noted here that the Local Organising Committee of the CWC2007 was given managerial and other rights to the facilities at Arnos Vale, Stubbs, and Victoria Park until after the Cricket World Cup.
It also does appear that the Netball Association was not duly informed of the course of action being undertaken.
It does not matter that the facilities belong to the National Sports Council and not the Netball
Association. It is an act of courtesy to inform the governing body of the sport and to have them involved.
But it does appear that the CWC2007 is not at all about involvement.
There must be a concern in other quarters about the damage to other facilities.
The St Vincent Grammar School Playing Field and the Calliaqua Playing Field have both been earmarked for use as parking lots for the warm-up matches.
The government of this country, utilising funds from the National Lottery, has expended millions of dollars on several previous occasions to develop the Grammar School Playing Field only to engage in actions that seem to undo all that has been undertaken.
The most recent damage to the Grammar School Playing Field was the use of the facility for a political rally in inclement weather. It took several months and lots of dollars to bring it back to some semblance of acceptability.
Now we are threatening to have a similar situation by deeming it suited to parking.
There seems something wrong with adopting a stance that on the one hand purports to be constructive while at the same time engages in the damage and possible destruction of other facilities.
Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the CWC2007 is the way in which the flow of information has been managed. Perhaps we should instead say, how it has not been managed for this is what appears to be the case.
Travel
There is a major nightmare in respect of travel in the Caribbean under normal circumstances. For the Cricket World Cup, these problems will be considerably exacerbated.
Suffice it to say here that the closure of BWIA and the commencement of operations by Caribbean Airlines have not helped as many people are waiting to measure the effectiveness of the new enterprise.
The Liat/Caribbean Star project and the closure of the Caribbean Sun do not appear to be in the best interest of the CWC2007.
Both projects have come much too close to the World Cup.
While the CWC2007 will ensure that participating teams do get around via the necessary charters the supporters are not in receipt of similar guarantees. One can readily see the weekly traffickers having to do that much more to ensure that they ply their trade uninterrupted.
One can expect crowded airports and furious travellers.
Skewed Development
The region has lost the initiative it once had in the sport of Cricket.
There was a time the West Indies team, initially through the action of Deryck Murray, introduced the all-pace attack that was later to take precedence as our modus operandi. For years following that vein, we ruled the Cricket world.
Unfortunately, we learned nothing from our successes. We introduced no genuine or intelligible development plan for the game in the region. We climbed the ladder of success without ever attempting to consider what it would take to make it sustainable.
Essentially, despite our years at the top of international Cricket in all its versions at the time, the WICB did not prepare itself and the sport in the region for the response of the countries that were involved in the game before us and who did not take kindly to our command of it.
Our weakness in the face of the response of the developed world in Cricket forced us to cow under their pressures and accept the ICC ruling delimiting the number of bouncers used in an over.
We lost this element of control even as the ICC placed at its helm a former West Indies Cricketer of immense talent, the late Clyde Walcott.
We were later forced out of professional cricket in England, at one time the bedrock of our development. We never developed the game at home being ever reliant on the Mother Country for guidance and development.
Once out in the cold, our game suffered and today we crave an audience at local and regional matches for no one seems interested beyond the players of the game.
The embarrassment in the form of so few in attendance at the semi-final and final of the KFC Cup at Arnos Vale over the previous weekend speaks volumes to the state of the game in the region, even as we prepare to host the Cricket World Cup.
The modus of the WICB does not inspire confidence.
The fact of hosting the Cricket World Cup, in and of itself, cannot change the way the WICB conducts business. The leopard does not readily change its spots.
Our preparations for the Cup leave much to be desired.
The buzz word, legacy, may be nothing more than another fanciful concept that serves its time only for the 58 days of the tournament.
