Contingency Plans Being Developed for Cricket World Cup 2007

The ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 is currently in the middle of developing its contingency planning report, which is due before the ICC at a Board Meeting in Barbados on May 11.
Speaking at a press briefing on March 10 at the Hilton Kingston Hotel, CWC 2007 Venue Development Director, Don Lockerbie said that Subhan Admad, an official from the Pakistan Cricket Board, who had “great experience” in developing contingency plans, had been seconded.
“He [Mr. Ahmad] has made it clear that his job was not to write a report of how the event would be taken to South Africa; instead, his report was to develop the plan of how we will retain all the matches in the West Indies,” he noted.
“That is what the focus is on, because it is beyond our control with respect to an ICC decision to remove the matches,” Mr. Lockerbie continued.
However, the Venue Development Director strongly doubted that the ICC would move matches to South Africa, judging from the development and current condition of host stadia.
Nevertheless, he was quick to acknowledge that there were other factors out of the realm of control, such as the forthcoming hurricane season.
“I think that at this time that would be the only way for the matches to be moved to South Africa. We are building all the stadia to hurricane code, but if countries are damaged to the degree that they could not take on the extreme intensity of the World Cup.we would have to go to the contingency plan with the ICC,” Mr. Lockerbie said. “We all hope and pray that we are not faced with that condition whatsoever,” he added.
In regard to the rest of the contingency plan, Mr. Lockerbie explained that there would be a scenario for every possibility. This would include dealing with a hurricane disaster, a terrorist event or anything that would cause unforeseen delays in stadium preparations.
Then, there is the matter of the tournament time contingency plan, which Mr. Lockerbie described as the second most intense aspect. “If we have inclement weather that is just so bad that matches cannot be played in a certain country, we would need a plan for that and that plan would be approved by the ICC and our Board,” he explained.
“From there we would be in a position of implementing and rolling it out. Hopefully we will not have to roll out a single page of it,” he added.