All Stadia will be Ready for World Cup Cricket – Dehring

ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 Managing Director, Chris Dehring, has assured that work on all stadia throughout the region would be completed in time for the staging of the international cricket tournament next March.
“We certainly believe that at this point we will be ready. There is nothing that is happening that will give us any major alarm that would say that we are not going to be ready,” he told JIS News.
According to Mr. Dehring, no consideration was being given to move any matches from any host country. “Certainly, that decision could only be taken by the ICC CWC and we see no reason to be considering this at this point in time,” he informed.
In fact, Mr. Dehring said, the ICC CWC was “quite happy” with the progress of all the venues at this juncture, especially with Warner Park in St. Kitts and Nevis, work on which was ahead of schedule for its first test match in June, which will pit West Indies against India.
“They [St. Kitts and Nevis] have been fantastic as a local organizing committee in terms of their commitment to delivering on the Cricket World Cup and by virtue of the fact that they have delivered their stadium ahead of schedule. It really speaks highly of the capacity and capabilities we have in the Caribbean,” he stated.
St. Kitts and Nevis’ performance is even more impressive, he pointed out, given that the country has never hosted an international cricket event. “They were considered.because they managed to submit an impressive bid to host ICC CWC matches,” he added.
Mr. Dehring, who is also ICC CWC Chief Executive Officer, acknowledged that there would be challenges along the way, as was the case with any international tournament, but contingency measures had been put in place.
“What we have done is to put in place the kind of monitoring and evaluation programme that helps us to identify problem areas really early, which also allows us to implement corrective action where it is needed,” he told JIS News. “I think that it is working very well,” he added.
Meanwhile, Robert Bryan, Executive Director of the Jamaica Cricket 2007, the local organising committee (LOC), said Sabina Park and the stadium in Trelawny would be ready in time for the event.
Speaking at a press briefing held recently at the offices of the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) in Kingston, Mr. Bryan said that the stadium in Trelawny, would be completed ahead of schedule, and the LOC was “on top of the situation” at Sabina Park.
Elaborating, he said that Ashtrom, the contractors working on the Sabina Park project, had submitted the construction schedule to the committee’s board. “We are happy with the schedule that we have. We have just gone through an ICC inspection in relation to that and we are very focused to ensure that no further slippage in time takes place in respect to Sabina Park,” he said.
Cricket matches, he said, would be played at Sabina Park on May 18 and 20 this year.