THE South African cricket authorities have been dragged into a public debate about drinking among their players in Caribbean night spots during the World Cup.

======STOP SUMMARY=====

A leaked fitness report from their former trainer Adrian le Roux reckoned alcohol abuse led to cramp problems during matches, and the captain Graeme Smith was criticised during the tournament for his early-hours presence in a night club in Grenada after South Africa’s Super Eight defeat by New Zealand. It was two days before their crushing victory in Barbados over England, a team similarly under fire for drinking and carousing.

Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, said the players were among the fittest in the world and he played down the mention of drinking. “The regulations about the intake of alcohol on tour was only one aspect of a generally very positive report on the fitness levels of the team from Adrian,” he said. “We addressed all matters, including this, that arose regularly on tour and took steps accordingly.”

Cricket South Africa confirmed that they had held an official inquiry into drinking, and the chief executive Gerald Majola said it had been viewed “in a serious light”. He said: “It was found that a number of players had been drinking into the early hours after the match. We viewed this in a serious light, despite there being no curfew in place on an off day.

“We have now changed the curfew and other regulations regarding alcohol intake while on tour. We are also in the process of finalising the appointment of a team manager, who will deal with disciplinary and code of conduct matters within the Proteas structure as part of his duties.

“The inquiry, our findings and recommendations took place well before Adrian submitted his routine report after the World Cup. The players concerned know they let themselves and the team down on that occasion, and are now fully aware of what is expected of them at all times as professional cricketers representing their country.”

DEHRING REPORTS £16 MILLION WORLD CUP RECEIPTS TO WIPE OUT WEST INDIES BOARD DEFICIT

THE Caricom governments praised the organisation of the World Cup and felt the tournament had been a success, though the fact that actual total attendance was lower than the number of tickets sold was an unusual disappointment, despite good gross receipts of £16 million.

======STOP SUMMARY=====

A meeting of Caribbean heads of government in Barbados heard the interim World Cup report from the director Chris Dehring, and Keith Mitchell, Grenada’s Prime Minister, congratulated the organisers and cautioned against focusing too much on any negative aspects. He said: “All the Prime Ministers expressed how pleased we were generally with the Caribbean’s hosting of the event. We demonstrated to the world that we are very capable of hosting as well as anybody.

“This is the first time we have hosted anything of this scale and complexity and the first time in history that nine countries were coming together to do it. It is only natural that there are areas where we might have done better. Still, what is important is that the event overall was successful and we delivered.  The lessons learnt will only serve us better in the future as we host other events, including the Champions Trophy in 2010.”

Caricom leaders commended the organisers of the event -- the West Indies Board and the Local Organising Committees -- for the tremendous work done, particularly the construction and refurbishment of 12 stadiums and 22 practice facilities in time for the event. Mitchell said: “The Caribbean owes them a debt of gratitude and we as Prime Ministers recognised their outstanding contribution in our meeting today.”

Dehring said: “It has been an incredible 10-year journey, and the leadership and vision of Caricom leaders and the secretariat never wavered. What was particularly impressive was the ability of the nine countries in the region to come together when it mattered most and in the process meet all important timelines. In the context of a Caribbean single market, this should serve as a model for the future and an example of what can be achieved through unity.”

Dehring reported that the financial forecasts for the event remained robust and should shore up the finances of the West Indies Board by eliminating the accumulated deficit of that organisation. “Wrapping up an organisation of this size will take some time, but our forecasts show healthy profits for the event. In fact we hope to go down as the most profitable Cricket World Cup to date when the final numbers are tabulated.”

“We had the highly unusual circumstance of ticket sales substantially outpacing attendance. Over 672,000 tickets to the event were sold, which surpasses the last Cricket World Cup in South Africa, which sold 625,000 tickets. However, only 436,000 persons actually came through the turnstiles.”

“On a native population of six million people that would be creditable, but it is somewhat disappointing given the high level of ticket sales. However, the Caribbean can still hold its head high in this area. The ticket sales of £16 million are the highest ever recorded for any Cricket World Cup or ICC event, and that is a record we can be proud of.”

Dehring added that ticket revenues of South Africa in 2003 and England in 1999 had been about £5 million and £11 million respectively. “When you consider the size and value of these markets compared with the West Indies, it makes what is already a respectable performance even more creditable,” he said.

CHARLIE SAYS: The event would have been better if the ICC had been more in tune and if the final in Barbados had not been turned into a fiasco by ICC errors. It was not the West Indies fault that Australia were so strong and that three key nations – England, India and Pakistan – were so weak. A few hotels ramped up their prices, sold few rooms and paid the price for greed, which was nice to see.

THE world cricket authorities have suspended the five officials involved in the World Cup final mess-up in the Caribbean from the next international tournament – the Twenty20 version in South Africa in September.

======STOP SUMMARY=====

The ICC match referee Jeff Crowe and umpires Steve Bucknor, Aleem Dar, Rudi Koertzen and Billy Bowden incorrectly ruled that, after a stoppage for bad light, the match in Barbados would have to be completed the following day even though the minimum 20 overs in the second innings had already been bowled. The finish was widely condemned in the media as a farce.

An ICC statement this evening said: “With both sides keen to avoid that fate and with the match already all but decided in Australia’s favour, it meant the final three overs of Sri Lanka’s innings were played out in near darkness. In the wake of what happened the ICC official David Richardson carried out a full investigation, which included seeking the interpretation of all five officials. The result is the penalties imposed.”

The ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed commented: “It would have been easy to let sleeping dogs lie and pretend nothing happened,  but the reality is that the playing control team made a serious and fundamental error that caused the final of our flagship event to end in disarray and confusion.
 “That was not acceptable for such experienced and talented officials and although we do not like to have to take such action, we felt it was necessary to decline to appoint them for our next event, the ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa. We feel that to stand them down for this two-week tournament is a proportionate measure.

Crowe, the former New Zealand batsman and referee for the final, should perhaps have taken more blame than the rest, and he admitted his error at the time. He said today: “While it is never easy to take criticism, I think it is right that there are consequences for our actions as match officials. In this instance I understand that the ICC could not merely let it go.  We set ourselves high standards as match officials and at the end of that day we did not reach those standards. It was not a pleasant experience for us but hopefully now we can look forward and learn from it.”
The result should be been decided by Duckworth-Lewis method when conditions became impossible.
The Twenty20 World Cup, involving the 10 ICC full members,  Kenya and Scotland is scheduled to take place at three venues – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg – on Sept 11-24.

CHARLIE SAYS: It was incredible that not one official at the World Cup final was aware of the tournament rules. The event had already taken a battering to its prestige with small crowds and much criticism of the ICC misjudged approach to the commercial side – high ticket prices and paranoia protecting sponsors’ rights -- at the expense of spectator enjoyment.

ALL drugs tests during the World Cup in the West Indies proved negative, the ICC confirmed today. This follows the clean ICC Champions Trophy in India last October and November, which was the first major cricket event held under the World Anti-Doping Agency Code.
 

======STOP SUMMARY=====

The publicity surrounding the ejection of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif from the Champions Trophy for positive steroid results stemmed from inaugural pre-tournament domestic tests in Pakistan. This proved that cricket was not entirely clean, and Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, urged India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh – the only major countries still not testing -- to initiate a WADA policy.

During the World Cup, 15 of the 51 matches, including both semi-finals and the final, plus two warm-up matches, were randomly selected for testing. Two players from each team involved in those matches were randomly selected for testing, giving a total of 68 samples that were submitted for analysis.  All match venues had doping control facilities and there were no reported problems or issues.
 
Samples given from matches in Jamaica were flown to Canada for checking, while samples from all other countries went to London.  All samples were checked at WADA-accredited laboratories. Speed said: “The fact that all drug tests at the ICC Cricket World Cup proved negative is a great result for the game. It sends out a very positive message, something everyone connected with the game can be very proud of.
 
“It also confirms cricket’s reputation for being low risk when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs, but that does not mean the ICC, or any of our members, can afford to be complacent in this area. Our approach to their use has been consistent and long-standing as we have tested players at our events involving Full Members since the 2002 ICC U/19 Cricket World Cup in New Zealand.
 
“And with our signing of the WADA Code together with the work our Member Services department has done in producing DVDs and literature on the subject we are more committed than ever when it comes to ensuring cricket is not tarnished by performance-enhancing drugs.
 
Speed added: “It is encouraging that five of our full members – Australia, England, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa – are testing their players outside of ICC events and the West Indies is set to join that list in the near future. We would encourage all our remaining full members not already doing so to follow suit for the good of the game.”

CHARLIE SAYS: Cricket must remain wary of steroid drugs -- for example, suspicious of rapid recovery from injury.

INDIA’S captain Rahul Dravid today denied claims that Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly had been disruptive during the World Cup and his rebuttal rings true, but the coach Greg Chappell seems to have departed with little credit.
 

======STOP SUMMARY=====

Recriminations flew thick through the air from the moment India were eliminated after defeats by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Trinidad, and Chappell was criticised this week by a selector for failing to understand Indian cricketers’ psyche. “He was more like a schoolmaster than a friend,” Ranjib Biswal said on the Indian news channel Headlines Today .

Another selector Bhupinder Singh said: “Greg wanted to show everybody he is the boss. He was not happy with anybody.” He claimed that Chappell was not on talking terms with Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh for days during the South Africa tour that preceded the World Cup.

During the programme there were allegations that Tendulkar and Ganguly undermined Dravid’s leadership, but Dravid denied this at a media conference  before India’s one-dayer against Bangladesh in Dhaka. “To be honest with you, I felt I had as much support as I needed,” Dravid said. “I was very happy with the team that I had and the support that I had.”

CHARLIE SAYS: Greg Chappell and the selectors themselves on the programme should carry the can for a dire Indian track record that stretched back before the ICC Champions Trophy in India last October. As with Duncan Fletcher and England, the wrong players were selected to provide the nucleus at the wrong time. India, an ageing team, were weak in the Champions Trophy, and the World Cup was simply an extension. 

England would be jolly good at celebrating

THE World Cup trophy has been broken again. The victorious Australian party arrived in Sydney after their 44-hour journey from Barbados to Sydney with its central bolt broken, requiring another trip to the silversmiths in London. It was damaged in India during the winter, and details of both incidents have been discreetly withheld.

======STOP SUMMARY=====

At a news conference the captain Ricky Ponting said that the match officials in the final had given him a choice of returning the following day to finish, but he preferred to play out the remaining minutes in the dark with the game already won. “It sounded a whole lot better to us to get those three overs out of the way that night than come back the next morning,” he said. “I'd have been struggling to find someone to bowl the three overs the next morning.”
Ponting added: “The celebrations were long and hard which is what they should be after you win a World Cup. There were some pretty amazing scenes coming back to Australia from guys with not a lot of clothing on at different hours of the morning, but we celebrated as we should.”

CHARLIE SAYS: If only England could win the World Cup, we would be jolly good at celebrating – double somersaults on pedalos, the whole works.