Recently, the International Cricket Council (ICC) which is the governing body for World Cricket, instituted some changes to the playing conditions, effective 29 September 2007. The BU household, like most West Indians, was concerned about the huge sums of money which the region spent to support CWC 2007. Six months later, we remain steadfast in our view that money which were spent to prepare for CWC 2007 does not match a realistic expectation of returns. The much touted legacy benefits are yet to be realized. We hope, for our children’s sake, that we are wrong and the debt created by CWC 2007 is not recorded as the biggest white elephant the region has ever seen.

As we understand it the new playing conditions call for international cricket grounds that host One Day Internationals (ODI’s), 20/20 and Test matches to have boundaries of a certain length:

Boundaries square of the wicket must be a minimum of 150 yards (137.16m) (previously 140 yards 28.01m) with the minimum on one side of 65 yards (59.44m) and straight boundaries must be a minimum of 70 yards (64m) (previously 60 yards (54.86m)

Source: ICC

We have used our best efforts to research the various sizes of the 8 venues which were used to host the recent CWC 2007 but we were unsuccessful. (We need to fire that someone responsible for research in the BU household!) We hope a BU reader can assist us with the exact sizes of the 8 venues. In the absence of venue sizes, we have to take the word of a leading Caribbean Cricket commentator, Joseph ‘Reds” Pereira, who shared his concerns on radio a couple weeks ago. In a nutshell, he indicated that several of the cricket venues which hosted the recent CWC 2007 may find the new conditions to be a barrier to hosting international cricket in the future. He cited the cricket grounds located in St.Kitts-Nevis, Antigua and Grenada which will probably need some more money spent if they want to host international cricket in the future. We find this information, if true, to be very concerning. Even though Barbados and the larger islands may not be placed in the incredible position of not having to spend money so soon after CWC 2007 to further improve venues, it must embarrass the region as a whole to find itself in this situation. Surely the ICC would have known about the proposed changes to the playing conditions and should have passed on that information to the organizers of the CWC 2007.

In the days and weeks ahead with the start of the KFC Cup we will be sure to hear more discussion on this matter.

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