NEW DELHI — As India gears up to hold the ICC Cricket World Cup, there is no reason to fear a repeat of the problems that plagued the country’s last major sporting event, cricket officials have promised.
The World Cup, a 49-match tournament that bills itself as the world’s third-largest sports event behind the Olympic Games and soccer’s World Cup, will be played in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and opens this weekend. Already, serious problems with one venue in India, Eden Fields in the city of Kolkata, forced a highly anticipated match to be moved to the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
But officials say the situation is not at all comparable to the Commonwealth Games in October, when athletes’ quarters were dubbed unfit by visiting teams just days before the games started; venues were completed at the last minute and international audiences, for the most part, stayed away.
“The level of preparedness is hugely different,” said Haroon Lorgat, the chief executive of the International Cricket Council, the Dubai-based group that runs the tournament.
The Commonwealth Games often relied on untested venues and featured many sports that were not particularly popular in India. But cricket is a favorite in the country, and the tournament is using existing stadiums that are regularly in use, Lorgat said. As of this week, “they are all ready,” he said.
The World Cup’s opening match on Saturday is being held in Bangladesh, the first time that country has had the honor of hosting the opener. Matches then rotate through India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh before the final at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium on April 2.
The first match in India is scheduled for Sunday in Chennai, and nearly three dozen matches will be played at stadiums throughout the country. India has several home-grown cricket tournaments, including the Indian Premier League, which draws high-profile sponsors and generates the equivalent of millions of dollars in revenue, so the venues are home to well-attended matches.
Unlike the polite curiosity that greeted most of the Commonwealth Games in India, cricket in general, and the World Cup in particular, inspire frenzied devotion here. In big cities, any bare patch of earth, even the interior of a traffic roundabout on a busy road, is considered fair game for an impromptu cricket match.
“When God bats, my world stops,” read one opinion piece about the World Cup on Sunday in the Times of India. (In this case, God is the Indian batter Sachin Tendulkar.)
Assocham, an Indian trade association, estimates that one in five Indian office employees will take time off work to watch the matches, and warned that office productivity would fall “significantly” during the tournament. The group recommends that managers show matches in the office to cut down on absenteeism.
Eden Gardens, a nearly 150-year-old pitch in Kolkata sometimes referred to as the Coliseum of Cricket, was to be home to the Feb. 27 match between England and India, a fierce rivalry with a weighty local history. (Calcutta, as the city was previously known, was the original capital of India under British rule). On Jan. 31, the I.C.C. told Indian officials the match would have to be played elsewhere because the stadium was not ready.
Indian officials said the delays were beyond their control and resulted in part from the construction workers doing repairs to the stadium. “With private contractor work, you can’t really predict how long it will take,” Rajeev Shukla, vice president of the Board of Cricket Control in India, India’s national cricket authority, said in an interview Monday. There were also “some changes in the original plans” that may have delayed the construction, he said.
Officials at the I.C.C. said they were left with no choice after deadlines were extended twice and still not met. “Completion to us meant everything, and there was quite a bit of construction that was incomplete,” said Lorgat. “All the bucket seats were not installed, and the roof was not complete,” he said.
The World Cup, a 49-match tournament that bills itself as the world’s third-largest sports event behind the Olympic Games and soccer’s World Cup, will be played in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and opens this weekend. Already, serious problems with one venue in India, Eden Fields in the city of Kolkata, forced a highly anticipated match to be moved to the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
But officials say the situation is not at all comparable to the Commonwealth Games in October, when athletes’ quarters were dubbed unfit by visiting teams just days before the games started; venues were completed at the last minute and international audiences, for the most part, stayed away.
“The level of preparedness is hugely different,” said Haroon Lorgat, the chief executive of the International Cricket Council, the Dubai-based group that runs the tournament.
The Commonwealth Games often relied on untested venues and featured many sports that were not particularly popular in India. But cricket is a favorite in the country, and the tournament is using existing stadiums that are regularly in use, Lorgat said. As of this week, “they are all ready,” he said.
The World Cup’s opening match on Saturday is being held in Bangladesh, the first time that country has had the honor of hosting the opener. Matches then rotate through India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh before the final at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium on April 2.
The first match in India is scheduled for Sunday in Chennai, and nearly three dozen matches will be played at stadiums throughout the country. India has several home-grown cricket tournaments, including the Indian Premier League, which draws high-profile sponsors and generates the equivalent of millions of dollars in revenue, so the venues are home to well-attended matches.
Unlike the polite curiosity that greeted most of the Commonwealth Games in India, cricket in general, and the World Cup in particular, inspire frenzied devotion here. In big cities, any bare patch of earth, even the interior of a traffic roundabout on a busy road, is considered fair game for an impromptu cricket match.
“When God bats, my world stops,” read one opinion piece about the World Cup on Sunday in the Times of India. (In this case, God is the Indian batter Sachin Tendulkar.)
Assocham, an Indian trade association, estimates that one in five Indian office employees will take time off work to watch the matches, and warned that office productivity would fall “significantly” during the tournament. The group recommends that managers show matches in the office to cut down on absenteeism.
Eden Gardens, a nearly 150-year-old pitch in Kolkata sometimes referred to as the Coliseum of Cricket, was to be home to the Feb. 27 match between England and India, a fierce rivalry with a weighty local history. (Calcutta, as the city was previously known, was the original capital of India under British rule). On Jan. 31, the I.C.C. told Indian officials the match would have to be played elsewhere because the stadium was not ready.
Indian officials said the delays were beyond their control and resulted in part from the construction workers doing repairs to the stadium. “With private contractor work, you can’t really predict how long it will take,” Rajeev Shukla, vice president of the Board of Cricket Control in India, India’s national cricket authority, said in an interview Monday. There were also “some changes in the original plans” that may have delayed the construction, he said.
Officials at the I.C.C. said they were left with no choice after deadlines were extended twice and still not met. “Completion to us meant everything, and there was quite a bit of construction that was incomplete,” said Lorgat. “All the bucket seats were not installed, and the roof was not complete,” he said.
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