Tony Becca

Once upon a time during lunch time in a Test match at Kensington Oval in Fontabelle in Bridgetown, Barbados, a cricket fan, a man known for his huge appetite, took out his lunch, placed it on the floor before him and before he had started to enjoy his meal, a policeman shouted to him: "No, no! No selling allowed in here!"

Well, based on what is happening, based on what the fans are being told will not be allowed inside the grounds during the showpiece of cricket, that will not happen during World Cup 2007.

That man, and others like him, will have to walk with a lot of money to purchase a dozen or two hot dogs and/or hamburgers to meet his needs.

According to the organisers of the World Cup, there are certain items which will not be allowed in the grounds - including large lunch baskets, or hampers as they are called in some places around the Caribbean.

More items banned

Although the organisers, those in England and those in the West Indies, have not spelled out what will not be allowed, it is understood that apart from large baskets and hampers, the banned items will include large flags, drums and noise-making metals such, as pot covers, horns and shells.

While the banning of baskets and hampers is understandable in this day and age, when every dollar and every cent counts in the bid to make as much money as possible, while the banning of metals may be understandable in this day and age of terrorism, it is difficult to understand why the banned items at cricket matches in the West Indies will include flags, large or small, horns and shells.

It is difficult to understand for the simple reason that West Indians are out-going, happy people who love to enjoy themselves - to sing and to dance; it is difficult to understand for the simple reason that cricket at Kensington Oval is not the same without the noise that comes from the Kensington Stand; it is difficult to understand for the simple reason that cricket at Queen's Park Oval is not the same without "Blue Food" and his conch shell; and it is difficult to understand for the simple reason that cricket at the Antigua Recreation Ground is not the same without Chickie and "Gravy" - and especially so when the West Indies are on top, when a West Indian batsman hits a boundary.

It is even more difficult to understand when cricket in the West Indies is like a party, when every West Indian island, every territory, is looking forward to thousands upon thousands of visitors from around the globe. And when, if you ask anyone, any foreigner, who has been to cricket in the West Indies, why he comes to cricket in the West Indies, he will tell you because it is like a party - because he enjoys himself so much at cricket in the West Indies.

That is one of the reasons why, probably the main reason why Barbados and Antigua boast so many visitors during a cricket series in the West Indies - and particularly so when the series involves England.

It is also difficult to understand the proposed ban on these items when it is remembered that back in the 1990s when the West Indies made their bid to host the showpiece of cricket, they promised an experience, a West Indian experience, never to be forgotten.

Fun at cricket

At that time, the experience promised included not only the warmth and hospitality of the people, and the sun and sea: it also included fun at cricket, the rum and Coca Cola, and a taste of the island delicacies - of things like curried goat and mannish water, jerk pork and jerk chicken, flying fish and cuckoo, pelau and roti.

The way things are heading, the visitors to Jamaica, for example, may only get, if they are lucky, a smell of the curried goat, the jerk pork and the jerk chicken in an atmosphere which, remembering the ban on flags and drums, horns and shells in England since the 1980s, instead of being alive and enjoyable, may be as quiet and as conservative as it is in England.

On his many visits to the podium, Chris Dehring, the chief executive officer of CWC West Indies limited, has promised the world a World Cup to remember - a Word Cup better than any before it.

Based on the way things seem to be heading, however, based on the number of visitors that the organisers expect in the region and the restrictions which seem to be geared for the comfort of the visitors, and to them only, Sabina Park, on match day, may simply be like The Oval, Queen's Park Oval like Old Trafford, and Kensington Oval, as it almost was in 2004, like Lord's.