Posted on 07/06/2004 4:28:44 AM PDT by Winniesboy
David Hopps Tuesday July 6, 2004
The Guardian
International cricket's desire to gain a foothold in the United States was thwarted yesterday when it was rejected as one of the eight venues for the 2007 World Cup because of potential disruption caused by stringent anti-terrorism measures. The lack of any assurances from the US government that visa applications would be fast-tracked for players from all competing nations caused the game's governing body, the International Cricket Council, to shelve ambitions to promote the game in the toughest and most lucrative market in the world.
The disturbing possibility that a high-profile Muslim player could be stranded at an American airport, trying to explain to bemused immigration officials that he had a vital cricket World Cup match to play in Florida, was a damaging scenario that the ICC and the West Indies World Cup organising committee dared not take.
The fall-out from 9/11 means the likes of St Kitts and Nevis, two tiny Caribbean islands with a joint population of 39,000, have outbid the United States, official population, according to the CIA factbook, 293 million.
The World Cup will have an entirely Caribbean flavour, with matches also in Antigua, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia and Trinidad. An ICC spokesman said: "The United States bid offered no guarantee that all players would be able to travel, perhaps at short notice. The practical problems were enormous."
American Green Card issues were also a concern, with concerns that the US might not recognise the special skills of cricket cameramen and might try to impose its own labour force, ill educated in the niceties of the game.
The ICC remains committed to expansion plans in the US. World Cup warm-up matches may still be held in Fort Lauderdale and several international triangular tournaments will take place in the next three years. The ICC has just advertised for a new chief executive of the USA Cricket Association, which is perceived as loosely run and riven with conflict. Ten thousand people play cricket regularly in the US, chiefly in Florida, California and New York, but it remains a disparate, hand-to-mouth activity.
This month's launch of the unofficial ProCricket League has brought more frustration. The pitch was so bad in the first game in San Francisco that fast bowling was banned and wild assertions that Alec Stewart and Andrew Caddick would take part have been strenuously denied.
Back in the real world, the 2007 World Cup schedule will be announced on July 13. Of the other short-listed venues, which were all examined by a World Cup bid committee, Bermuda, St Vincent and a second venue in Jamaica were also rejected.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
All I can say is, good riddance to bad rubbish. We need an army of Third World cricketeers descending on the US like we need a hole in the head. International cricket matches are invariably an opportunity for Pakistanis and West Indians to sneak their way into the developed host country and illegally immigrate.
We certainly don't need any more of that!
But you will miss Days of the single most exciting easy to follow straightforward skillful spectator sport yet invented.
I understand the convention in the States is to say clearly when you are being sarcastic to avoid confusion: I am being sarcastic.
You're just bitter because the poms keep getting whooped.
Not any more they (we) don't. 3-0 victories in the last two Test series isn't doing too badly.
For a real comparison, it may be prudent to reserve your judgement until after next year's Ashes.
Not sure of the evidence for this. Members of the national cricket teams in the Indian sub-continent, in particular, have a near godlike status and huge financial rewards, both of which they would instantly forfeit if they did this - so not sure what the motivation would be.
Maybe they're refering to the fans?
Oh, that's just wonderful.
Isn't it enough that we've already got soccer here?? Talk about a sport that promotes global touchy-feeliness and one-worldism! Do we really need more of this?
How many more non-American, third-world sports do we need to have overexposed here before we can get back to what's really important—Football, NASCAR and Baseball!
It's true that the actual players -- at least most of them -- are quite famous in their home countries. They have little reason to illegally emigrate as long as they continue to play. But the many hundreds of team "assistants" and hangers-on are the ones who will scuttle and run once they get past the immigration counter at the airport.
That does make more sense. However, my recollection of the 1999 World Cup played in England was that most of the support for visiting teams came from expatriates already here, rather than travelling fans. One of the highlights of that tournament was the India-Pakistan match, played well before the recent thaw in Indo-Pak relations, to a capacity and passionately partisan crowd, yet without a hint of violence - far less threatening than the average Premiership football (ie soccer) match. Again, I believe that the rapid growth of cricinfo.com as the world's most- visited single-sport website is largely attributable to the number of hits from expatriate subcontinentals already in the US, starved of news of a sport which doesn't exist for the US media.
Yes the attitude of some of the folk replying to this article is curious. Even if I didn't follow cricket, you'd reckon there'd at least be some curiosity about such a major event and more to the point being a great commercial opportunity. Consider the huge cashed-up indian ex-pat community servicing the software development industry in the US for example.
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