Better Days Ahead At Sir Viv's

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This stadium's best days are yet to come.

By Tristan Holme

It is widely agreed that the last ten days in Antigua have been a failure, though the organisers have regularly been at pains to deny that there have been any problems.

The stadium has been empty, the West Indian players seem to think that the crowd support them personally rather than the institution that is West Indies cricket, hotels are half-full and the boom that businesses were expecting has simply not happened.

At first the Daily Observer - Antigua's only paper that sports a whopping 20 half-sized pages - was keen to depict a joyful scene.

'The Pride Is Back!' screamed the front page after the first day of the rained-out Australia v West Indies game, despite foreigners complaining bitterly about the lack of organisation and ridiculous rules that made them park their cars some three kilometres from the stadium and pay an extra US$4 for their troubles.

However after a while it became difficult to deny that something wasn't quite right and the columnists have begun to hit back, with one even going down the sensationalistic tabloid route to claim that the game of cricket itself has gone to the dogs.

Sir Vivian Richards has admitted since the first day at the new stadium that Antigua has not been allowed to represent its own culture, and here lies the biggest failure of all.

To put it metaphorically, the World Cup was already hobbling around having been shot in the foot by high ticket prices, and the ICC restrictions simply came along and blew its head off.

With avid fans asked to pay at least three times the normal rate for cricket, but told they'll have to sit down and behave like Englishmen at Lord's on a hot day (no instruments allowed now people), it's no wonder that none of them have turned up.

A chat with an English fan who was in the Caribbean three years ago for the England tour reminds me of what I was expecting of the games here.

"You'd be standing there and some old fellows are behind you beating two pieces of metal together. Rin-tin-tin. Rin-te-tin-tin. Just senseless noise all around, but it was brilliant. The party stand was brewery-run, so for US$30 you would eat and drink all day with people delivering drinks to you in the stands.

"It was just a non-stop party and even when the one day of a Test was washed out and there was next to no chance of getting any play the next day, people came back to have a party that spilled into the streets. It was utter carnage and it was wonderful."

Driving past the Antigua Recreation Ground I can just imagine it. An old, majestic stadium full of Caribbean character and bursting at the seams with history, unfortunately the Recreation Ground was deemed too small by the ICC.

They were probably right in truth, and the one thing that locals are not bemoaning is that they now have a world-class facility on which to play cricket, just as soon as the governing body bugger off and leave them to have some fun.

Meanwhile the roads have vastly improved in preparation for the tournament and St John's has received a face-lift, so while the cricket has been rubbish the average citizen has as least benefited in some respects, even if those improvements will have cost the taxpayer.

The ICC have a lot to answer for with regards to the World Cup - both to those who couldn't represent their culture and to people like myself who weren't allowed to enjoy it - but at least there's some good news for the future on this thoroughly enjoyable island.