Lack Of Security Rather Worrying

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Mir speaks to the press outside the Pegasus.

By Tristan Holme

It's come as little surprise that calls have been made for security to be increased at the World Cup.

There were rumours last week that Pakistan were unhappy with the arrangements in place and had made an official complaint to the ICC.

However in a press conference last Friday in the lead-up to their match with Ireland, media manager Pervez Mir denied the rumour and insisted that Pakistan were happy with everything the ICC were doing.

But even this week I have witnessed negligible security at the Pegasus Hotel, where all four teams in Group D have been staying and where Bob Woolmer was tragically murdered on Saturday night.

On entering the hotel no questions are asked, and while I may be wearing my media badge most of the time along with the other journalists hanging around the lobby, even those without identification go unchallenged.

There is a small police presence, but they don't ask questions and any man could just walk in off the street and approach the numerous players strolling around the hotel without anyone asking where they are from and what they are doing.

Despite not being a resident in the hotel I shared many drinks with five of the Zimbabwe side on Wednesday night (without my media badge) and not once was I stopped and questioned.

With the media scrum currently going on at the hotel one can understand that it's difficult to keep track of people down in the lobby.

But the worrying thing is that nobody will stop you from catching a lift up to any of the rooms in the hotel and you'd often find yourself sharing one with some of the players or management.

I have been told that there are plain-clothes policemen around and that the hotel has beefed up security in the last few days following recent revelations, but it all seems too little too late at this stage.

Even in the press box at Sabina Park there has been a Pakistani supporter walking around without any accreditation, and a fellow journo has told me that the man has blagged his way into the players' section as well as the press area.

He seemes to be mates with a lot of the players, but if this is his excuse then it's still rubbish since he should have some sort of identification.

The majority of this World Cup has been very well organised and thoroughly enjoyable, but there's no doubt that an increase in security would not go amiss.