International Cricket Council's Chief Executive Malcolm Speed has told
BBC Sports that the Caribbean could lose the right to stage Cricket's
World Cup next year unless venues are completed on schedule.
The
grounds in Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and
Nevis, St Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago - all need upgrading, updating
or simply redeveloping. Progress has been slow. Will the region be ready
on time ? Will it make the Athens Olympics of 2004 look like a master
class in forward planning ?
When
the 2007 Cricket World Cup was awarded to West Indies, there was more
than a hint of skepticism from the rest of the cricket world. Were the
grounds big enough? Could the infrastructure support such a venture? How
do you move thousands of supporters from island to island? And where on
earth are they all going to stay, given that this will be a peak holiday
time with cricket followers there in addition to the usual visitors?
In the
first of three Sports Internationals, Orin Gordon visits the region to
see if they are ready for one of the biggest events on the global
sporting calendar, and looks at the logistics of staging the event in
eight different countries.
