WITH submissions from 11 countries in hand to host matches in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007, Managing Director and CEO of the company organising the event, Chris Dehring, is satisfied that the bid process is the best approach to prepare countries for the collaborative effort needed to stage the largest event ever to be held in the region.
Likening the bid process to the building of a cricket team, he said, “For the team to be tested, prepared and strong, individual team members need also to be tested, prepared and strong. This process is a more scientific, systematic and professional approach than other methods suggested. It is designed to facilitate fairness, transparency and equal opportunity for all interested countries to be selected to the ‘team’, regardless of size or cricket tradition.”
“More important however, is that by requiring every country to go through the process, collectively as a region we are now better prepared for the delivery of a uniformed “world class standard” which we are contracted to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to deliver.”
“Judging only from the high production quality of the submissions received, it is evident that all of the countries took the process seriously and have invested heavily in terms of time and other resources to do the research and planning that will certainly be vital to this event.
We have no doubt that the semi-competitive environment helped to further stimulate countries to give of their best,” said Dehring.
Dehring noted that even though Trinidad and Tobago have indicated that they did not wish to compete against other countries, they still went through the process of preparing and submitting a response to the 290-page Bid Book, based on the requirements of a particular package. “We respect the fact that all eleven countries which submitted a response might each have different views as to how this event could be run. This is clearly one of the major challenges anticipated with hosting an event of this magnitude across so many countries, but we were able to achieve relative unity.”
He also explained that the one country, the Bahamas that had not followed through with its intention to bid, was still keen to participate through hosting of warm-up matches.
“I really wish to thank the cricket associations, governments and bid committees as well as all of their social partners for their support of the process. While we have not yet studied the submissions, we are aware of the tremendous effort and serious approach of the relatively small countries that make up our region and of this we can be justly proud.”
The Bid Book to which countries responded had several sections but the most critical was ‘The Deliveries’ that detailed the minimum requirements and standards that venues must meet in critical areas of operations.
The Venue Assessment Team (VAT) comprising an independent group of world games experts will now assess the bids based on these 24 ‘deliveries’ covering elements such as the cricket stadium and cricket operations, security issues, medical facilities, finance, accommodation, political environment, local organising committee, disaster management, media facilities, accreditation, communications, marketing support, immigrations and customs.
They will also visit each country from May 24 to June 11 to verify the information contained in the submissions. Their technical assessment and recommendations will be passed on to the Board of the ICC CWC 2007 who will make the allocations of matches that will be sent to the ICC for approval.
The countries selected to host matches will be announced on July 4 while the award of matches will be revealed on July 12.