That's a bit more like it

With a little admission about ticket prices and another message to fans to bring in the noise, even the ICC seem to have acknowledged fears expressed beforehand about the tournament, a situation superbly captured by Paul Harris in his Sunday Stabroek cartoon.

It has the World Cup CEO, Chris Dehring in a butler suit, presenting on a platter the CWC 2007: “Exactly how would you like it Sir…Not spicy… Not exuberant … Not…???” The man at the table is Malcolm Speed, wearing a Rasta hat with dreads, fish and plantain chips on the table before him, a bongo with Rally Roun’ De West Indies sitting beside him. “Oh! Lighten up will you, Chris ‘ol chap…?”

Indeed spontaneity and intimacy has been sacrificed. Take for example, the thing about musical instruments. Persons can carry conch shells, shak shaks and other instruments into the stadium with permission from the Local Organising Committee, we’re told. Persons can, but no normal person will. Few souls can have the same clinical approach to taking a musical instrument to the cricket as applying for a home loan. Iceboxes must have to be of a certain size. In Trinidad I was allowed to take in a bottle but only if I took off the cap. Meanwhile, given the rates, it ought be illegal to call those stalls selling food and drink Concessions as proud yellow banners do. And so on.

Many criticisms about this tournament have been made, as a brief visit to The Surfer will show, and most are very good ones.

Cancellations following the ousting of India and Pakistan hasn’t helped the mood. The entertainment has gone underattended. The historic Demerara Cricket Club, home to Lance Gibbs and Clive Lloyd, has set up a Legend’s Village with nightly exhibits and events; at nearby Independence Park, the mayor of Georgetown has organised another fete; an exhibition of cricket paintings by an artist of great repute is on, so is an excellent Jazz festival, there’s a lecture here, a signing session there, and all of them are basking in the spotlight of a 40-watt bulb.

All I can is that it was a relief to see some life out there today, some fun. For the first time in the Super Eights the stadium was near to packed. Among the things that Providence has over its atmospheric wooden predecessor, Bourda, is a grass mound. It was packed and liming and from the back of it was a view of a sugarcane field: it felt at least in some measure Caribbean.