Football
19y

FEATURE-Cricket-Much talk, little action as 2007 World Cup looms

By Telford Vice

ST JOHN'S, Antigua, May 6 - On an average weekday
morning in Barbados the drive from Bridgetown's prestige hotel
district to Kensington Oval can take 45 minutes.

The journey is less than seven kilometres.

Kensington Oval is scheduled to host the 2007 World Cup
final, when around 20,000 cricket fans from across the globe
will add to an already crippling load on the narrow, clogged
and, in places, crumbling roads.

Plans are afoot to alleviate the potential crisis, with the
building of elevated freeways the latest idea put forward.

The Kensington Oval is due to be knocked down in June after
Pakistan's tour of West Indies, and is due to be rebuilt, World
Cup organisers say, by the end of 2006.

The ground's capacity will be more than doubled to 28,000,
and its facilities will be dramatically improved.

At least, that is the blueprint, though so far nothing has
been demolished or constructed.

Despite the problems, many people are confident the
Caribbean will be ready.

"I do fully believe that not only will the West Indies and
Caribbean region be ready to host the next cricket World Cup,
but I expect that the world would be shocked into understanding
that we in the Caribbean are as special as they come when it
comes to putting on a wonderful show," Colin Croft, the former
West Indies fast bowler and now a respected commentator, wrote
in the Trinidad and Tobago Express.

"I do have my reservations about our attitudes of
accelerating at the last minute to get it all done, but despite
the traumas that we have suffered, I also know that Caribbean
people, individually and collectively, are tremendously
resilient people.

"I know that we will be ready, spectacularly so."

LESS CONVINCED

Others, however, are less convinced.

"They'd better get a move on," a taxi driver said as he
nudged his cab through the morning traffic during last month's
third test between West Indies and South Africa at Kensington
Oval.

"We keep hearing that this or that is going to happen, that
Canadian engineers are going to rebuild our road system, which
is not good because a lot of the streets are built on sand.

"But it's all talk -- nothing ever seems to happen, and the
time is getting short."

Cricket fans hoping to find answers to their questions by
going to www.worldcupbarbados.com, the website published on
official World Cup promotional material, are informed that they
have reached the future home of a travel industry site.

When former West Indies captain Brian Lara, perhaps the most
recognised person in the Caribbean, travels from his home in
Trinidad to Guyana, he is required to present his passport to an
immigration official.

He has to pay departure tax and if he needs to change
Trinidad dollars for the Guyanese variety.

That is because Guyana, which is just an hour's flight from
Trinidad, is a sovereign state, as are Barbados, Antigua,
Jamaica and the other seven countries where World Cup matches
are scheduled to be played.

Plans to institute travel documents that will ease movement
through the region are on the cards, but they remain just plans.
The same goes for an as yet unseen universal Caribbean currency.

For all his enthusiasm, Croft also asked more complex
questions.

"While the Caribbean and its people are passionate for the
sport of cricket, will the sustainable benefits of the World Cup
slip by them, especially after the tremendous investments that
would have been used to bring off a successful World Cup?," he
wrote.

"Will the region be stumped by the aftermath of the Cup?
Cricket World Cup will bring a surge of tourism dollars and
development to the Caribbean, but will it also bring great
social and economic costs?"

The 2007 World Cup is expected to pump approximately

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