By Qaiser Mohammad Ali Aug 5, 2006, 5:41 GMT
New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) World Cup cricket CEO Chris Dehring is hoping the 2007 championship in the West Indies turns out to be a 'Cinderella story' - or a tournament full of surprise results.
In the biggest ever cricket World Cup comprising 16 teams, qualifiers Holland, Scotland, Bermuda, Canada and Ireland will be up against the big boys Australia - the defending champions, runners-up India, England, Pakistan and others in the March-April competition.
'We will have to wait until the tournament evolves to see the performance of some of the teams. Clearly, it has made some of the opening round matches not as attractive to find,' Dehring told IANS in an interview.
'But the reality is upsets make tournaments - the Cinderella story, the underdogs,' said the man who wrote and presented the Caribbean's winning proposal to host the World Cup for the first time.
To support his argument, the 44-year-old Dehring, who was here for the Indian launch of the World Cup, pointed out minnows Kenya's dream run in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa where they reached the semi-finals against all odds.
'And they almost became fans' favourites because people wanted to see the Kenyans do well as they were underdogs. Similarly, in the 2006 football World Cup Trinidad and Tobago were very popular even though they did not win any game,' stressed Dehring, who attended the tournament in Germany.
'I would like to see the underdogs or the less popular teams do well, but let's see how the tournament pans out to see whether 16 is the right number or not.'
In South Africa, 14 teams took part and this time as many as five qualifiers have joined the 10 Test-playing nations and Kenya, who have a special one-day international status, at the March 11-April 28 tournament.
Another issue that concerns the tournament is accommodation. It is feared that hotels would hike up tariffs during the World Cup, making it inconvenient for thousands expected to descend on the Caribbean.
Dehring, however, said that fans should not worry because there were several options for them.
'We have a wide range of accommodation - from home stay programmes to villa programmes and bed-and-breakfast programmes and a number of cruise ships are available which are great value for money.
'When we talk about cruise ships, people tend to think of it as a solution of our problems. The reality is that it is a fantastic asset the Caribbean has. We have over 50 percent of the world's cruise ship market.'
Dehring, a founding partner of one of Jamaica's most successful investment banks, Dehring Bunting & Golding Ltd., stressed that cruise accommodation was a fine way to see the enchanting Caribbean islands.
'We are inviting people to take advantage of it. There are a number of ships available that provide both accommodation and transportation. The Caribbean is a premier product, and we are not going to devalue it simply because there is a cricket World Cup.'
When reminded of his recent reported remark that the organisers could not solve all accommodation problems, Dehring said that he was only emphasizing the point that there was always a heavy demand at every mega event.
'And if you are a successful global sporting event, you will have more demand than supply. For the 2006 football World Cup there were 100,000 English fans in Germany, but only 26,000 were able to get a ticket,' he said of his first-hand experience.
'That's not a problem; that's simply a question of supply and demand. We in the Caribbean will certainly generate, like all other successful global events, more demand then supply,' said the man who was a member of the International Cricket Council's negotiating team that secured the four-year, $550 million media rights deal with Rupert Murdoch's Global Cricket Corp.
© 2006 Indo-Asian News Service
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