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dbratt@trinidad.net
ICC
makes a killing
So
it’s out in the open. The ICC’s Cricket World Cup
which thousands of red-blooded West Indian fans had looked
forward to with joyful anticipation, as of the halfway mark
is an abject failure.
The only ones who seem to be benefiting are the hundreds of
schoolchildren being bused in to make the “stadiums,”
apparently the new word for a cricket ground, look half-filled
and the few South American prostitutes left behind still plying
their trade.
Well, that seems to fit in right in there with the ICC philosophy.
It has US$560 million from its current TV deal, and double
that for the next two World Cups. It seems to believe it is
improving the game by putting the emphasis on television
and if nobody turns up at the matches, that’s not
a problem.
It can mamaguy us by claiming the games are “sold out”
and making sure the TV cameras are focused on the small groups
of white people wearing as little clothes as possible, trying
to wine and getting ludicrously drunk on whisky and Baileys.
No rum is allowed here, you know. This is the Caribbean.
The amount of mistakes the ICC and its local advisers made
is incomprehensible and demonstrates a serious lack of touch
with Caribbean peoples. From the problems with the common
visa to the inane restrictions, one wonders where these people
live and who they talk to. Not the ordinary people who give
the game its Caribbean flavour.
Middle class professional people sitting comfortably in air-conditioned
boxes do not give the game excitement. It’s the small
man from Barrackpore and Laventille, knowledgeable in cricket
ways and traditions, who sits in the sun, backs his side regardless,
drinks rum, shouts, plays cards and yet manages to see everything
happening on the field of play, who makes cricket a spectator
sport. This is what the tourists come to experience.
The ICC priced the working class out of the game and outlawed
the spirit. What a colossal marketing failure!
The same thing happened in 1989 when you filled the stadium
up with middle class white-collar types who had never been
to a football game. When push came to shove and the team needed
backing and iron, all they got was a whimper and a groan from
the educated classes.
You change up the whole system that people have evolved over
the years of getting into the cricket ground. The entire complex
system of getting up early to cook food, call your partners,
pack up in the car, find a place to park on somebody sidewalk
in Woodbrook, walk down the street, take a first shot, push
and sweat to line up to get in, all a necessary prelude and
warming-up to the main act itself, the cricket match!
On top of stopping the natural fan from going to the game,
then you come along and say, “No rum!” “No
steelband!” “No conch shell!” “No water!”
“No food!”
Then you want to hold people captive, refuse them exit and
charge them outrageous prices for nuts and water, and you
want to know why people not interested?
Somebody want a bootoo on their back.
Do not even mention a stupid format that allows a side to
have a bad day or two in a two-month tournament and get eliminated
or scheduling that makes the home team play three games in
six days and then have nine days off. Financial losses in
India alone, by advertisers and travel agencies, is estimated
at over US$35 million. What about our losses?
The real question is who is to blame? Who negotiated this
farce? Is it the heads of governments? The Caricom prime ministerial
sub-committee on cricket? The various cabinet ministers involved?
CWC West Indies? The Local Organising Committees? The ICC
itself?
Already people are running for cover claiming it wasn’t
them! Chris Dehring, he of the 100,000 tourists projection,
says CWC West Indies had nothing to do with establishing the
price of tickets. So foreigners did it? Some minister in Antigua
insists his government was “forced” to build a 20,000-seat
“stadium.” Forced?
The LOC in T&T proclaims it has “stepped up to the
plate,” a baseball term better known in New York or Toronto
and curiously out of place during cricket at the Queen’s
Park Oval.
This only illustrates the dangers in handing over power to
people with pseudo-American accents who claim to be experts
in marketing and local traffic but who disappear as soon as
the going gets rough. “Yuh fraid to leave yuh crease,
boy!”
Congrats to the ICC and its local minions. You all have managed
to do what successive governments and West Indian teams haven’t
been able to do. You killed our spirit for cricket.
History is divided into those who believe the corruption theory
of business and those who prefer the incompetence theory.
That’s why you have commissions of enquiry. If there
is any place for one, it’s here.
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