W/Cup bid under ICC microscope

BRIDGETOWN: The West Indies Cricket Board want to scotch any doubts over their ability to host the 2007 World Cup during meetings of the game’s leading officials in Barbados on tomorrow and Thursday.

The World Cup will be “the key item” on the agenda of Thursday’s meeting with the International Development International Ltd, the commercial arm of the International Cricket Council, WICB chief executive Roger Brathwaite said. It will be preceded by a meeting of the ICC’s executive committee tomorrow. Both groups comprise president Ehsan Mani of Pakistan, chief executive Malcolm Speed and board presidents and chairmen of the ten full members (Australia, Bangladesh England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe) and three associates (Holland, Kenya and Malaysia). Brathwaite described the meetings, the first of their kind to be hosted in the Caribbean, as very important to the regional cricket board. “There are many of our international associates who question the ability of the West Indies to successfully manage an event of such magnitude and we want to let them see first hand that we can,” he said by telephone.

The ICC awarded the West Indies the World Cup for the first time two years ago. The eight previous tournaments were staged in England in 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1999, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 1987 and 1996, Australia and New Zealand in 1992 and South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya in 2003. The IDI meeting would discuss the format for the World Cup and a compensation claim from the ICC’s commercial partner, Global Cricket Corp, the ICC said. It would also address a request by the Board of Control for Cricket in India for the release of its entire dividend of US $6.5 million from the 2003 World Cup in February and March. The executive’s agenda will look at a proposal to introduce a new protocol for the cancellation of international tours and the recognition of player associations, officials said. The IDI has to decide whether to approve a management committee recommendation that the 2007 World Cup be increased from 14 teams, as in 2003, to 16 instead of four groups of four  teams. The top two teams in each group would advance to a Super Eight stage before moving on to the semifinals and final. Mani, Speed and McClements are also scheduled to visit Jamaica next weekend for the opening of the headquarters of Windies World Cup 2007 Inc, the company established by the WICB  to organise the event.
AP