The new $40 million stadium, its soft pinks and blues contrasting with the drab homes around it, looms as a colorful symbol of this tiny Caribbean island’s rebirth — and its commitment to cricket.
The Queen’s Park grounds is where this nation, ravaged by back-to-back hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, will make its debut today as host of six Cricket World Cup matches — the world’s third-largest sporting event after the Olympics and soccer’s World Cup.
It is also where the home West Indies team, coming off three straight losses, seeks to keep its tournament hopes alive in a much-anticipated do-or-die match against South Africa today.
‘This is an occasion you must mark as a Grenadian in your calendar as things you accomplished in your life: that you were there,’ cricket fanatic and local business consultant Spencer Thomas, 50, said about the South Africa match.
‘This is very important. Not only for the game of cricket, but for Grenada as a whole. We’ve got to showcase to the world that we are here; we didn’t lay down and die after Hurricane Ivan. We are ready to do business.’
Many tournament watchers, including the sport’s governing International Cricket Council, were skeptical about Grenada’s ability to carry out its duties as one of the tourney’s nine Caribbean host nations after Hurricane Ivan destroyed the stadium and nearly 90 percent of the island’s structures in September 2004. A year later, Grenada’s 90,000 people were hit again, this time by Hurricane Emily.
‘Most people did not give us a ghost of a chance,’ Prime Minister Keith Mitchell told The Miami Herald.
Although as late as Sunday afternoon workers were paving one of the narrow roads leading into the stadium — the stadium was financed by the People’s Republic of China, whose workers toiled around the clock for months to finish on time — Mitchell insists Grenada is ready for showtime.
The government has declared today a public holiday, dressed the island in Grenada’s national red, gold and green colors and opened up a ‘cultural village’ so Grenadians can gather and feel part of the tournament even if they are not attending the matches. There is even a mini-carnival planned.
Grenadians, Mitchell said, are proud of ‘being involved in an international event on our home soil, given the damage that occurred in the country before. [It] is a tremendous lift to the country psychologically.’
But if Grenadians are feeling a lift from the international spotlight, cricket fans in most of the other host Caribbean countries are still reeling from a shortfall in attendance. The tournament originally promised to bring 100,000 cricket fans to the tourist-dependent region, but tourism officials are reporting too many hotel vacancies.
‘It’s disappointing our team isn’t here anymore,’ said Rajan Ramnarayan, 28, who traveled from the Middle East to the games even after his home India team was eliminated. His brother and a friend joined him here, but seven others decided to cancel their reservations and eat the cost of the game tickets. ‘We’re here more for the holiday,’ said Ramnarayan, who estimates the trip is costing him $5,000. ‘We’ll still watch some of the better games.’
With the nine host nations, which invested about $1 billion into staging the event, now looking at dwindling revenues from ticket sales, region-wide finger-pointing has started in recent days. ‘It’s obvious there are areas of concern, and justifiably so,’ said Mitchell, who also chairs the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) sub-committee on cricket. ‘There will be sufficient time for us to analyze, review and make a critique of what transpired, but now is not the time for it.’
The tournament was plagued by problems from the onset — price gouging by airlines and hoteliers, the surprise early elimination of India and Pakistan, which have a combined 1.2 billion cricket fans, and restrictions on bringing noise-making instruments into the stadiums, poor local marketing and high ticket prices.
Add to this the still unsolved murder of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in Jamaica last month, and World Cup organizers have found themselves trying to douse one public-relations fire after another.
‘We’ve had a bit of a mixed fortune,’ Chris Dehring, chief executive officer of the overall organizing group, said by telephone Sunday while watching a match in Antigua. ‘We started with a high with the opening ceremony, and we’ve gone through a mix of ups and downs — good cricket, bad cricket.’
Dehring said he doesn’t have a full picture of what has gone wrong, though he said the departure of Pakistan and India, and poor performance of the West Indies team after initial wins, recently led to thousands of empty seats in Antigua when West Indies played two-time defending champ Australia.
Antigua organizers tried to recover by offering 1,500 free tickets to young people to help pack the stadium and beefed up local advertising. As a result, Antigua had its biggest crowd Sunday, said Brenda Lee Browne, spokeswoman for Antigua’s Local Organizing Committee.
To prevent a repeat of Antigua and to finish off strong with the April 28 championship match in Barbados, organizers recently announced they will relax some of the rules regarding musical
Here in Grenada, the news is literally music to their ears.
‘We need to say thanks to Antigua,’ said Colin Dowe, 37, a recruiter at St. George’s University here. ‘Cricket goes along with calypso and drinks.’
On Sunday, Trevor St. Bernard and Dowe, who has taken the next couple of weeks off to attend all six matches, spent the day with friends camping out. They’ve done this every Easter weekend for several years now.
But this year, the group brought along a little something special: a television and makeshift satellite dish.
The dish hung from a tree overlooking the ocean while the 19-inch TV set sat in the back of a van, hooked up to a buzzing generator. On the screen: the Antigua match.
‘We are warming up,’ Dowe said. By topix.net
Filed under: Cricket World Cup: Grenada set to showcase recovery in | Leave a comment »
India Pakistan Cricket Match 