KEY POINTS:
ST AUGUSTINE, Trinidad - A pitch slammed as "unfit" by South Africa capped a week of woe for 2007 cricket World Cup organisers in Trinidad.
A string of mishaps has undermined the admirable efforts of World Cup staff and volunteers, who have worked hard, cheerfully and efficiently to try and remain in control of situations that were pre-destined to deteriorate.
Play in the warm-up match between South Africa and Pakistan at the Frank Worrell Memorial Ground was held up for seven minutes today.
With players complaining about the ball bouncing erratically, South African coach Mickey Arthur and his Pakistan counterpart, Bob Woolmer, even came on to the field after 16 overs to discuss the state of the pitch with umpires Peter Parker and Ian Gould.
Off the field, International Cricket Council (ICC) officials engaged in a flurry of telephone calls to try and resolve the issue.
"Mickey and (South African captain) Graeme (Smith) both consider the pitch unfit for play," South African media manager Gordon Templeton said.
"The issue is the safety of the players," Rushmans media manager Ed Walsh said.
"Some balls are coming through low, while some balls are coming through high."
The surface calmed down as the sun rose higher and by the afternoon the pitch had been tamed.
It was the second time in a week that matches at the ground were overshadowed by incidents that were beyond the players' control after a fallen sightscreen held up play for 77 minutes during Pakistan's game against Canada on Tuesday.
The next day, the Pakistan, South Africa, Canada and Ireland squads were evacuated from the Trinidad Hilton in the wake of a gas leak on the eighth floor of the hotel.
Police said at least 14 guests and hotel staff were taken to hospital.
While no members of the cricket squads needed any medical attention, a government official said police were investigating a theory that the chaos was caused by a teargas canister that was detonated deliberately.
If these problems were not already causing headaches for the organisers, the Trinidad and Tobago police have threatened to go on strike once the tournament begins in earnest next week in another looming labour dispute.
While many await the arrivals of the Indian, Sri Lankan, Bangladesh and Bermudan teams for the group B games at the Queen's Park Oval, it seems fans, too, have had their fair share of worries to deal with.
Some Trinidad cricket lovers were aghast to discover that World Cup tickets they had purchased online had been sent to Antigua in error.
"When the option to collect or have the tickets delivered by courier came up, by some error the tickets were in a drop off box at the default location which is Antigua," the ICC ticket supervisor for Trinidad, Mark Santana, told Port-of-Spain newspaper Newsday.
Santana said the mistake was in the process of being rectified.
Other spectators have complained about the high prices being charged at match venues, where a bottle of water costs US$2.32 ($3.43).
Two cases of food poisoning struck the ranks of the media who had been covering matches in St Augustine.
During the match between Ireland and Canada yesterday, a reporter retched violently and loudly on to the pressbox floor even as a nearby colleague ploughed through a voice report for an Irish radio station.
Perhaps the organisers should have taken note of the omens heralded by the earthquake that shook Trinidad in February.
The quake, which caused no injuries and little damage, was reported to have measured 4.7 on the Richter scale.
- REUTERS
