The World Cup came a full circle in 2007 when the West
Indies had the honour of staging it. It should have been a watershed for West
Indies cricket, which languished in the nineties after the magnificent Lloyd-Richards
era of the seventies and eighties, and indeed the earlier glorious days of
Constantine, Headley, the three Ws - Worrell, Weekes and Walcott, and the
peerless Sobers. Not only did the supply line of world-class players dry up
either side of the turn of the century, West Indies cricket in general went
into decline. There seemed to be complacency, financial constraints were a
bane, pitches turned into lifeless sandpits and the team depended on the
performances of three or four stars. Not surprisingly, West Indies failed to
reach a World Cup final after 1983, coming close to it only in 1996. The
dreadful slump must have hurt.
But there were clear signs of a turnaround. With a
streamlined administration, Brian Lara regaining his magical touch, a batting
line-up at par with the best in the world, promising young bowlers beginning to
emerge and wickets showing signs of life, West Indies cricket appeared to be on
the high road towards re-scaling the pinnacles of yore. It would have been a
fair reward for the most enthusiastic and joyous crowd in world cricket.
Through the days of ignominy, it had been the delightful crowds at the West
Indies grounds that kept their cricket going. They deserved a feast and were
dearly wishing that their team would provide the dessert. Lara would certainly
have been yearning for a triumphant theme to his swansong, a high note in the
evening of a glittering career.
In the words of the ICC, the logo
of the 2007 World Cup “expresses the joy and exuberance of cricketers and
cricket fans worldwide, in a Caribbean setting. The vibrant red figure central
to the logo captures the exuberant energy of dance and celebration. The colour
red represents the passion that the fans both in the West Indies and the world
have for the game of cricket. The positioning of the bat and ball are
figurative elements of the palm tree forming the trunk and fruit. The vibrant green
of the crown of the palm tree, and the azure blue which stands for the
surrounding sky and seas are the backdrop in which the prestigious tournament
will take place.”
The mascot of the 2007 World Cup
was a teenage character called ‘Mello’, who embodied the lifestyle of the
region, ‘cheeky and curious and socially aware like so many young people
today.’
Hero Honda and Hutch joined LG
Electronics and Pepsi as global partners of the ICC. The telecommunications
behemoth, Cable & Wireless, long associated with West Indies cricket, was
the principal telecom provider to the event, and an official sponsor alongside
Indian Oil and Scotiabank.
The prize money remained static
at $5 million, but the teams took home larger amounts. The champions were
awarded $2.24 million, while the runners-up received $1 million. The losing
semi-finalists got $45,000 each, while the teams that finished fifth to eighth were
awarded $200,000, $150,000, $100,000 and $50,000 respectively. In the group
matches, the winning teams took away $10,000 and the losing teams a consolation
of $5,000. The player-of-the-tournament prize was a diamond-studded cricket
ball crafted at Kolkata, worth Rupees 30,00,000 ($60,000), won appropriately by
Glenn McGrath.
The ICC’s Venue Assessment Team, using
the most stringent standards, chose eight venues: Antigua & Barbuda,
Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica I, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, and
Trinidad & Tobago. Capacity in all the grounds, except St. Kitts, was
enhanced to seat at least 20,000 spectators. Jamaica, headquarters of the ICC
World Cup 2007 Inc., had the privilege of staging the opening ceremony and
opening match, as well as the first semi-final. All preliminary round matches
in Group D were played here at the Sabina Park in the capital city, Kingston.
The second semi-final was held in St. Lucia at the state-of-the-art Beausejour
Stadium in the resort town of Gros Islet. The preliminary round matches in
Group C were staged at this venue.
Kensington Oval, dubbed fondly as
The Mecca by the locals, at Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, was chosen to
host the final, and also six super-eight matches. Home to the Pickwick Cricket
Club since 1882, the ground has hosted international fixtures since 1895,
including the first Test match played in the West Indies in 1930 against
England. A new stadium came up here to hold 31,000 spectators, more than
doubling its earlier capacity of 15,000.
Group A teams battled in out in
the refurbished Warner Park at Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts &
Nevis, where the capacity is just 10,000. The preliminary round matches of
Group B were played at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain in Trinidad &
Tobago. Even though hitherto it had the largest seating capacity in the
Caribbean, a new stadium was built here too, capable of holding 25,000 people.
The other three venues staged
only super-eight games. The brand new Queen’s Park Stadium at St. George’s, the
capital of Grenada, was one of these arenas. Sadly, the Antigua Recreation
Ground, headquarters of the West Indies Cricket Board, and where Brian Lara
twice broke the record for the highest Test score, did not see World Cup action
as a result. The Antigua & Barbuda government ordered a new stadium named
after the legendary Sir Vivian Richards, which was built at North Sound,
outside its capital St. John’s. Interestingly, China paid $23 million to
construct this facility.
A new stadium was also built in
Guyana at Providence, near the capital Georgetown to replace the Bourda Oval.
The Government of India provided assistance, the cost of $25 million being met
through a $6 million grant and an Exim Bank loan on concessional terms.
Bermuda, Jamaica II, St. Vincent
& Grenadines, and the United States of America were the four venues that
lost out. There was much talk about staging four matches in the United States,
one of which would have been in Disney World, Florida. Though the United States
finished sixth and last in the ICC Trophy 2005, they would have gained
automatic entry as co-hosts of the 2007 World Cup. That would have given
tremendous fillip to the game in that country. America has a longer history of
cricket than is generally believed. The game was introduced there in the early
18th century by the British, and John Adams, one of the founding
fathers of the nation, was also one of its first cricketers. The first-ever
international cricket match was held between the United States and Canada in
1844 at the St. George’s Cricket Club Ground in Bloomingdale Park, New York.
The US team beat the West Indies on January 5, 1888, and more recently won the
American Championships in 2002, during which they beat Canada by three wickets.
There are 10,000 players representing 500 clubs in 29 leagues across New York,
California - which has four turf wickets - Florida, Chicago, Texas and New
Jersey. Ultimately the strict security measures that would have been enforced
for entry into the United States, following the 9/11 attacks, deterred the ICC
from staging matches there. Cricket will have to wait awhile before it gains a
foothold in the richest market in the world.
The eleven teams with One-day
International status were seeded according to their rankings in the ICC table
as on 1 April 2005. Five other qualifiers came in, based on their performances
in the ICC Trophy held in Ireland in July 2005. The winners of that tournament,
Scotland, and fifth-placed Holland joined Australia and South Africa in Group
A. Bermuda, fourth in the ICC Trophy, were put alongside Sri Lanka, India and
Bangladesh in Group B. The third qualifiers Canada were placed with New
Zealand, England and Kenya in Group C, while runners-up Ireland found
themselves in Group D along with Pakistan, West Indies and Zimbabwe. The ICC
spent up to $500,000 on each of the five qualifiers to prepare for the World Cup
and development of cricket in these associate member countries. The groups and
seedings were as under:
Group A at St. Kitts : Australia
(1), South Africa (5), Scotland (12), Holland (16).
Group B at Trinidad : Sri Lanka
(2), India (8), Bangladesh (11), Bermuda (15).
Group C at St. Lucia : New
Zealand (3), England (7), Kenya (10), Canada (14).
Group D at Jamaica : Pakistan
(4), West Indies (6), Zimbabwe (9), Ireland (13).
There were exciting
possibilities. Despite setbacks like the players’ endorsements controversy, the
tournament was believed to be the turbo that West Indies cricket needed to
re-charge itself. The event was televised in 200 countries to an estimated
viewership of two billion. The World Cup had come a long way since that day in
1975 when all the top cricketers of the world assembled at Buckingham Palace to
meet the Queen. One could almost see the calypso kings swaying in anticipation.
What actually happened was not
only stunning and entirely unexpected but turned this into the most tragic
World Cup of all. First the brand new stadiums with every modern facility at
hand, but many located miles out of the way were too inaccessible for the local
populace. Their very character was so distinct from the homely Caribbean party
venues that the old stadiums were. To make matters worse the high ticket prices
were a huge deterrent to the average West Indian fan, along with stifling
security that prohibited them from bringing in not only their own food and
placards but also musical instruments that are an integral part of joyous
Caribbean cricket. It was avaricious and officious administration at its worst,
and it came as no surprise that the officials were roundly booed at the closing
ceremony. There were sparse crowds at all the grounds. They reached a nadir at
the Warner Park, Basseterre, St. Kitts where less than 1,500 people saw
Herschelle Gibbs hit 6 sixes in an over. Only in five of the 24 group matches
did the crowd exceed 10,000, the highest being in the opening clash between the
hosts and Pakistan at Sabina Park in Kingston, and the India-Sri Lanka
encounter at Queens Park Oval, Port of Spain, when the figure exceeded 16,000.
The average attendance in the group matches was less than 7,000.
There was an improvement from the
super-eight stage onwards, and even though restrictions were eased, there was
never a capacity crowd. The largest assembly was at Brian Lara’s farewell game,
the last super-eight face-off with England at the famous Kensington Oval at
Bridgetown, when 22,452 fans arrived. The next highest was in the final, the
official attendance figure being 20,108, again at Kensington Oval, which has a
capacity of 31,000. The average attendance figure through the super-eight to
the final was just over 10,000. Still, the gate receipts were double that of
the previous World Cup at $32 million. The moot point was whether the same, or
better, result could have been achieved with lower ticket prices but much
larger crowds.
The format of the tournament was
changed, bringing in two more teams, making a total of 16 participants. There
were, therefore, four groups of four teams each, with the top two in each group
advancing to a super-eight league. This brought its own set of problems. There
were far too many matches against and between the weaker sides. Of the 24 group
matches, there were obviously only four games, one in each group, contested
between the top eight teams. One upset was likely to topple the applecart,
which it did in two groups and sent India and Pakistan crashing out of the tournament
after playing only three matches each. This not only took away huge numbers of
television viewers but also necessitated half the 24 super-eight matches
involving unfancied outfits like Bangladesh and first-timers Ireland.
The shock defeat of Pakistan at
the hands of Ireland also had a horrible fallout. The next morning their coach
Bob Woolmer was found dead in his hotel bathroom. Then followed one of the most
bizarre and sorrowful episodes in the history of sport. All kinds of
conjectures and insinuations flew about. Crack sleuths were brought in,
inquests were held, there were murder theories, stories about the betting mafia
and deranged fans did the rounds, the needle of suspicion was even pointed at
the players. The whole tournament was vitiated, and the sordid saga dragged on
for months after. Ultimately it was concluded that the genial man had died of
natural causes. In all probability, stress got the better of him; the intense
scrutiny and censure must have been too much to endure.
There was a lot of splendid
cricket played during the tournament but Woolmer’s death cast a dark shadow
over everything else. Australia marched on relentlessly. Such was their
dominance that they never lost more than six wickets in a match, and a couple
of their tailenders did not get a chance to bat at all. On the other hand, they
bowled out their opponents every time except in two matches, in one of which
they prised out six wickets in a 22-over innings, and in the other captured
eight wickets in the 36-over Sri Lankan knock in the final. It was awesome
cricket. Australia were not clear favourites this time, but they won all their
matches for the second World Cup in a row, wresting their third successive
title, and appearing in their fourth consecutive final. By doing so, they
surpassed Clive Lloyd’s great West Indies side and set near-impossible
benchmarks for other teams to emulate.
Just as everyone was heaving a
sigh of relief when the rain-interrupted, truncated final was drawing to a
close, the light was offered to the Sri Lankan batsmen after 33 overs, and
everyone trudged off. The Australians had begun to celebrate and preparations
for the presentation had started. But hullo, what’s this? The umpires Aleem Dar
and Steve Bucknor decreed that the match was not over and that everyone would
need to come back on the morrow to complete the remaining three overs, even
though the minimum 20 overs had been bowled. It was amazing that neither the
match referee Jeff Crowe nor the reserve umpires Rudi Koertzen and Billy Bowden
prevailed on the on-field umpires to end a match that was already over.
Ultimately it took a gentlemen’s agreement between the two captains Ricky
Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene to end the impasse. The Sri Lankan skipper sent
out his batsmen in near darkness and the Australian chief put on his slow
bowlers to conclude the farce. Never before had the final of a sporting event
of this magnitude ended in such embarrassing circumstances. That the five match
officials were suspended for the next ICC event, the Twenty20 World
Championship later that year, was hardly of concern to billions of disgusted
fans around the world.
It might be uncharitable, but quite often the word used
for this tournament was ‘fiasco’, even though there were lots of stirring deeds
with bat and ball. Indeed, off-field events overtook the exciting action in the
brand new stadiums of the exotic Caribbean islands. Not since the 1972 Olympics
at Munich had a sadder sporting international event been staged. It was time
for cricket to make a new beginning.
The
final:
Kensington Oval, Bridgetown,
Barbados, 28 April 2007
Australia
won by 53 runs (D/L method)
Australia:
281 for 4 wickets in 38 overs (Adam Gilchrist 149,
Matthew Hayden 38, Ricky Ponting 37)
Sri
Lanka: 215 for 8 wickets in 36 overs (Sanath
Jayasuriya 63, Kumar Sangakkara 54)
Man of the Match : Adam
Gilchrist
Player of the
Tournament : Glenn McGrath
(Author Indra Vikram
Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).
The Big Book of World Cup Cricket 1975-2011
ISBN 978-81-901668-4-3
Distributed in India by Variety Book Depot, Connaught Place,
New Delhi, Phones + 91 11 23417175, 23412567
Available in leading bookshops, and online on several
websites.
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