Ground plan

Cricket grounds around the Caribbean need to undergo major changes if the West Indies are to successfully stage the 2007 World Cup.

That's the view of outgoing West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) chief marketing executive Chris Dehring, who was recently appointed chief executive officer of Windies World Cup 2007 Inc., a subsidiary of the WICB.

"I know here in Barbados, Kensington Oval is loved and in Jamaica, Sabina Park is loved, but the reality is that most of our cricket stadiums are not up to world standard in terms of the facilities that are offered," Dehring told reporters on Friday night following the announcement of a new sponsorship deal between the WICB and Cable & Wireless.

He identified seating, bathroom facilities and parking among the areas in which improvements were needed to stage the biggest sporting event ever to come to the Caribbean.

Dehring is to assume his new position next month and he identified one of his first major challenges as bringing about an awareness around the region that there was not a lot of time to put things in place.

"We have never held an event of this magnitude and already you hear people saying: `It is a long, way away'. It's not," Dehring said.

"We're actually behind. Things like logistics - moving hundreds of thousands of people around the Caribbean in a very short period of time is obviously going to be a major problem."

Dehring said it was important that each regional territory makes its contribution.

"What we are going to try and do is to keep any sort of central organisation as small as possible," he said. "Every country involved in the World Cup is going to have a World Cup office and a World Cup staff. There is no way we are going to try and run this thing centrally.

"We are going to have to develop an operational blueprint that everybody conforms to," he said.