Ian Chappell
http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/extracover/content/current/story/290371.html
If administrators were judged on performance the way players and coaches are, there would be a much higher turnover of officials.
The 2007 World Cup is a case in point. Malcolm Speed, the chief executive officer of the ICC, in response to strident criticism of the tournament said he was concentrating on the “positives rather than the negatives”. A serious cross-examination of Speed’s assertions suggest he’s doing more than just looking at a glass that is half full and it must contain something far stronger than water.
**First, there was the failure of heavyweight Pakistan to qualify for the Super Eights. That was quickly followed by the mysterious murder of their coach Bob Woolmer and the abrupt retirement of the captain Inzamam ul-Haq. India, with its serious financial clout, was the next major team to be a no-show in the prestige section of the tournament. Shortly afterwards their coach Greg Chappell announced he wasn’t seeking an extension in the role but skipper Rahul Dravid survived. **
Then the hosts imitated a well-fancied horse ridden by a careless jockey; West Indies started full of promise but faded quickly in the straight. This prompted Brian Lara to confirm his retirement from one-day cricket. That was followed by Ken Gordon, the president of the West Indies Cricket Board, alluding to a number of personnel changes for the upcoming tour of England.
Despite numerous serious controversies to divert attention, these calamities haven’t camouflaged the PR disaster that is the 2007 World Cup. **Bickering over ticket prices and draconian measures to exclude musical instruments from the grounds has seen many matches played in a sterile environment and in sparsely populated stadiums. **The blame game for these ill-judged decisions has been like watching a long rally in the French Open tennis tournament, which is all rather strange when every press release stresses: “This is the ICC Cricket World Cup.”
Obviously in this case, the buck, like the tournament itself, appears to have no end of the line. Speed is always at great pains to spread the gospel that cricket is in good shape. However, you start to wonder if working in Dubai, where a ski resort is plonked in the middle of the desert and a hotel built in the ocean, hasn’t affected his grip on reality.
As if the litany of disasters at the World Cup isn’t evidence enough of a game in need of a re-think, there have been numerous other warning signals in the lead-up to the tournament. In the recent past there was the appalling handling of Zimbabwe’s predicament, the first ever forfeit of a Test match and **the two prestigious one-day tournaments have been played within six months of each other. **
Then there is the preposterous dilution of standards that has occurred under this regime. To have a match anointed as “official” appears to require nothing more than an assurance there are more than eleven registered cricketers in both countries participating in the match. This has led to a plethora of one-sided matches in both forms of the game. And we haven’t even mentioned corruption, which the England captain thinks is still prevalent in the game, or the mind-numbing mess that now constitutes the laws of cricket.
**Nor does it take into account that two teams have dominated the Test arena for the last two-and-a-half decades. And one of those sides has just gone 25 games at the World Cup without defeat and is currently on track to clinch the first hat-trick in that tournament, while also being the current holder of the other major ODI trophy. **
“Never mind,” I can hear the response, “the game is more affluent than ever before.” The game is like a tree: if you keep the trunk and the roots healthy the branches will take care of themselves. Perhaps the officials believe money grows on trees but the reality is, it only grows on Indian trees. And now there is conflict in cricket’s biggest market where a prominent Indian businessman has proposed a Kerry Packer-style raid on local cricket.
Packer’s influence changed cricket for the better in the late seventies and the game now needs a strong leader to set it on a firm footing to ensure a strong playing and financial future. The problem is the only drastic changes are among the playing and coaching personnel.
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
Its not just PR disaster it is a complete tamasha of ICC’s that continues to behave like a giant squid - massive but ugly…
I think the threads created in similar moods should be all merged here. including these
..http://www.paklinks.com/gs/showthread.php?t=248560&highlight=ICC+tamasha
…
http://www.paklinks.com/gs/showthread.php?t=250179
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
Empty seats, expensive tickets you name it they have got all sort of problems. World cup should only be held in India, Pakistan and Australia. At least they can fill the stadiums (Sometimes with school kids and declaring local holidays).
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
Today ,a semi final match of a worldcup is going on .Look at the stadium ,70% is empty .This has to be the most disastrous world cup ever. However i am expecting better crowd for that 2nd semi.
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
2nd Semi final will be a full pack, I think
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
I doubt there will be a sell out in this world cup. World Cup '07 has made news in all erroneous ways. It is sad because I think there were many good stories behind it. ICC has yet again botched to promote cricket, a sport filled with ardent followers and international devotees. They were too indolent to systematize and protect it from bad name. From security to PR campaign, ICC failed dejectedly.
Just look at soccer world cup, they went in with security fears and crowd behaving badly with their racist comments, but because FIFA knew its priorities, the tournament ended up as one of the most exhilarating and memorable World Cup ever.
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
I am not sure whether final will be playing in front of the huge crowd.Many people won't prefer to go to see a one sided match
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
^ I think locals will support SL. Lets see.
Maybe WC committee should announce free tickets for 2 hours before the game.
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
“The Caribbean is well on track to recording the highest Ticketing revenue for a Cricket World Cup – beating the US$22 million in England in 1999 and US$10 million in South Africa in 2003. This is a significant achievement for a cluster of small developing nations whose combined population is a fraction of that of countries which have customarily hosted the Cricket World Cup,” noted ICC CWC 2007 Managing Director & CEO, Chris Dehring.
http://www.cricketworld.com/world_cup_2007/article/?aid=11055
I think this has mainly to do with the ticket prices,but still…
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
Yeah you’re right, the crowds have n’t exactly thronged to stadia and most of the games have been played out in front of empty stands
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070428/wl_sthasia_afp/cricketwc2007;_ylt=Al_iKM8vxUqs_m4IOa.Ugu1vaA8F
by Dave James 35 minutes ago
PARIS (AFP) - It should have been a blockbuster which packed in the crowds and attracted rave reviews.
But, for many, the 2007 World Cup was too long, too expensive, too dull and eventually even the International Cricket Council was forced to admit that this particular marathon had left everybody exhausted.
“We listen to criticism, and there has been a lot of it from people saying it’s been too long - so we’ll look to make it shorter,” said ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed.
“We’ll seek to reduce this 47-day World Cup by seven or 10 days, and hopefully we’ll get it down to somewhere between five and six weeks next time.”
Whether or not the TV moguls will be happy with that arrangement remains to be seen especially with the 2011 edition to be staged in the sub-continent, the financial engine of the international game.
The ninth World Cup, the first to be held in the Caribbean, started welcoming the 16 teams in the last week of February; two months on, Australia and Sri Lanka were the two left standing, preparing for Saturday’s final.
But regardless of who emerges the winner at Kensington Oval, what will the 2007 tournament be remembered for?
Tragically, it will be forever associated with room 374 on the 12th floor of the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston where Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was murdered, the morning after the 1992 champions had been humiliated by Ireland.
The defeat sent Pakistan spinning out of the World Cup and the game of cricket, once a metaphor for all things decent in sport, into a serious bout of introspection amidst dark whispers of the involvement of match-fixing mafias in what became the biggest murder investigation in Jamaican history.
The search for Woolmer’s killers is still ongoing while there’s been no end to the fevered speculation as to a motive.
Mark Shields, the man leading the hunt and who briefly became probably the most photographed policeman in the world, hit out at “wild” rumours which continue to surround the case, saying they were “causing a lot of distress” to Woolmer’s family.
“The priority is to see the truth,” said Shields.
Woolmer’s body was on the way back to his family in Cape Town on Friday, six weeks after the slaying.
In the seven-week tournament, sparsely-attended games were a constant bewildering sight as locals, priced out of the market, voted with their feet.
The early exit of Pakistan and India, traditional magnets for battalions of fans, only added to the eerie quiet.
Things improved when organisers dropped their restrictions on musical instruments being brought into the grounds and introduced a right to re-entry.
Fans, however, argued that the measures were too little, too late.
England’s Barmy Army hit out at the costs of travel and accommodation, with many Caribbean hotels tripling rates.
English fans paid 5,000 pounds (7,300 euros) for a 10-day stay.
“It’s pretty expensive for people and that has been prohibitive to the younger fans,” said Barmy Army spokesman Paul Burham.
Steve Laffey, of Australia’s Fanatics supporters’ group, said fans were disappointed with the atmosphere at matches.
“We expected it to be a lot more lively, calypso cricket, the atmosphere usually associated with cricket in the Caribbean,” he said.
It wasn’t all gloom in the sunshine and there were some magical moments.
Inzamam-ul-Haq and Brian Lara’s tearful farewells will live long in the memory as will the evergreen talents of the likes of Glenn McGrath, Muttiah Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya.
With his bleached-blond hair and eyebrow ring, Lasith Malinga was a revelation with his slingy, round-arm action and his historic four wickets in four balls which almost added another dent to South Africa’s brittle confidence.
Matthew Hayden, meanwhile, crowned his comeback from the one-day wilderness by smashing virtually every attack to the four corners of the Caribbean, a performance which brought him the world record for the fastest ever century.
And then there was Ireland and their sensational win over Pakistan which proved, if only temporarily, that minnows, at least some of them, did belong in the World Cup.
But their good work was undone by the embarrassing maulings handed out to Bermuda, Scotland and the Netherlands.
Bangladesh’s young team made India look like..well, Bangladesh…with a win that sent Rahul Dravid’s men home after the first round.
Many of that Bangladesh team will only be in their mid-20s by the time the next World Cup rolls around.
So what about a world title for the Tigers on home turf? Now that would be worth turning up for.
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
Any way this damn world cup is going to end ,Thank God.
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
^^ thanks God it did..the final had a decent attendance (20,000). the highest attendance during this world cup was achieved during the england vs. west indies thriller on april 21 2007, which was brian lara's last match as well as england coach duncan fletcher's; the attendance for that match was 22,500, it was also probably the best match of this world cup. let's just hope they have the security tight in the subcontinent 4 years later.
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
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Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
When the next World Cup is held in South Asia, I hope and expect that every seat in every match in occupied. Thats how world cup matches should be.
Re: The 2007 World Cup is a PR disaster
Every Match will be a sellout.
Only big concerns are:
1 - Security.
Because of terrorism in Pakistan, India and especially in Sri Lanka with LTTE acquiring Air capability. You could see many teams forefitting matches in Sri Lanka because of this.
2 - Quality of Equipment.
This was a major problem in 1996. Electronic Equipment were of substandard quality and caused many fires.
3 - Behaviour of Fans
This only applies to India. If India can gets its fans undercontrol then this wont be an issue.