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Calypso cacophony will out

By Will last year, at the start of April Leave a comment on this post

Happy Easter all, if that’s your bag - and what an Easter it has been so far, with Bangladesh tripping up South Africa and the very welcome news that the World Cup’s Local Organising Committee (loc) have retracted their ruling to ban trumpets and drums from the grounds.

Here’s what everyone’s favourite ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Chris Dehring, humbly admitted (that is his full title by the way):

“The world has already seen the spectacle of fans from all over the world
dancing and savouring the unique environment in which this event is
being held and CWC is just seeking to enhance that even further for
the remaining matches,” Dehring added. “It’s amazing the things that
people can creatively make music from and we want to encourage that.”

How gracious of them to u-turn so spectacularly, with just three weeks to go. From what little coverage I followed of Bangladesh’s match against South Africa, the turnaround does seem to have had an effect on attracting the locals, instruments and all. But it’s too little, too late. And as for their moral u-turn - after all, these drums and trumpets were, until yesterday, dangerous and anti-social instruments of death - it’s another example of the hypocrisy and ignorance which has tainted this tournament.

Photo courtesy of Ryan

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3 Responses to “Calypso cacophony will out”

  • Scott wrote:
    April 8th, 2007 at 6.03 am

    To be fair to the ICC (first time for everything, I know) but normally Bangladesh vs South Africa isn’t the sort of fixture you’d rush out to buy tickets for. When I went to bed, Bangladesh were three down and looked set to struggle to get to 200.

    As I said in my earlier post, it might be too little too late for this sort of thing, but we’ll have to wait and see what transpires when the focus moves to Barbados and Grenada.

  • James wrote:
    April 9th, 2007 at 12.58 pm

    One of the World Cup’s press releases announcing the U-turn is entitled (by them) ‘Blow de horns, beat de iron, bring more riddim for ICC CWC 2007 matches’.

    Try repeating that aloud without turning into a lawyer at the three-quarter post. In fact, it could only have been said by someone whose written application to the LOC for a trumpet licence was in weeks ago.

  • Minchie wrote:
    April 14th, 2007 at 7.19 pm

    At the outset of the World Cup, I did find the atmosphere on the grounds sterile, unfortunately so. To my mind, that was the result of an ICC that was numb to the absolute link between the culture of the game and attendance.

    The prohibitive ticket prices aside, Caribbean locals would have gone to the matches in much greater numbers if the hi-fi music, the mound posses, the party stands, the dancers and cricket comedians were allowed to re-create for the visitors the sensational flavours that characterise West Indies cricket.

    The Windies are all but out of the tournament, but that would not have mattered.


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