POOR RESPONSE: The crowds were thin at this ICC cricket World Cup and the main reasons attributed for this were the prohibitive costs and lack of Caribbean flavour. — Photo: AFP

BRIDGETOWN: Has cricket's World Cup, the game's biggest tournament, turned out to be a flop?

Local cricket fans here in the West Indies, as well as commentators and followers of the game feel so. Tournament organisers are putting up a brave face, saying they are not faring badly at all. But the unexpected early exits of India and Pakistan, the poor performance of the hosts and the shocking murder of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer cast a cloud over the tournament's prospects early on.

Then there have been allegations about the organisers, dampening the Caribbean carnival spirit of cricket watching by not allowing musical instruments inside the grounds. They are also accused of making the event unaffordable for many fans with steep prices for tickets, stadium food and merchandise.

Short of target

Organisers now accept the 16-nation, 51-match tournament over a marathon 49 days will not be able to meet the targeted $42 million in ticket sales. By Wednesday, at the tail end of the Super Eight matches, only $29 million worth of tickets had been sold.

Cost of tickets

The ticket prices are $25-$100 for the Super Eight matches, $25-$130 for the semifinals and $100-$300 for the final.

Organisers said they have been trying to sell as many cheap tickets as possible. They said for the Super Eight matches in Barbados, the lowest $25 tickets were made available for more than 11,000 of the 27,000 seats.

But still the organisers had to distribute 6,000 tickets free to fans during the match between Ireland and Bangladesh.

Many Indian and Pakistani fans had snapped up 22,334 tickets for this match in advance, assuming it would be the clash of the South Asia rivals. But the fans didn't turn up when their teams crashed out early.

Barbados is one of four venues for the Super Eight matches and is staging the final. The island was expecting 5,500 Indian visitors for these games.

Trips cancelled

But Petra Roach of the Barbados Tourism Authority says only 800 have turned up. The rest cancelled their expensive packages, preferring to suffer substantial losses rather then making a trip with no team to root for.

Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is sceptical of the impact of the World Cup on the Caribbean economy. A new IMF report said the governments in the nine countries staging the tournament have spent a fortune.

New stadiums

Five new stadiums were built and others were upgraded altogether at a cost of $250 million, and more money was spent on improving infrastructure. Some of the stadiums were built with grants.

``The long-term net impact of the World Cup is unclear, especially in light of the associated fiscal costs,'' said the report.

The IMF believes the economic benefits of the tournament are ``likely to be diluted'' as matches are being played in different countries, and are taking place in the middle of the peak winter tourist season when occupancy rates are already high.

Add to this is the fact that public investment in the Caribbean has, according to the IMF, ``shown a relatively weak link with growth'' and the picture of relative gloom is complete.

Former Australian cricket captain Ian Chappell said the ninth cricket World Cup has been a ``public relations disaster''.

``Bickering over ticket prices and draconian measures to exclude musical instruments from the grounds has seen many matches played in a sterile environment and sparsely populated stadiums,'' said Chappell.

No Caribbean flavour

Retired transport worker Roy Drakes has spent a lifetime watching cricket in the islands. He said the tournament has been ``robbed of the Caribbean flavour''.

``That's the reason behind the attendance being poor. People would come here to savour in the local experience,'' he says. ``But the organisers shut out musical instruments etc. in the opening matches and the food inside is expensive.''

The organisers say they never banned musical instruments, but only asked the fans to get permission from the local organising committees before taking them in.

But when they finally let fans in with musical instruments — at the Bangladesh-South Africa match in Guyana on 7 April — it was a tacit admission the move had not gone down well with the fans.

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