Tony Becca

Chris Dehring, the managing director and chief executive officer of the ICC CWC West Indies 2007, is a man with confidence, confidence in doing what he says he will do, in delivering the goods, and up to two Sunday mornings ago, he seemed well on the way to doing so as far as the Cricket World Cup is concerned.

First, the man with the baby face, the smooth talk and the winning smile, along with his team and despite the fury of the people of the Leeward Islands, who felt left out, despite, as so many have pointed out, the absence of steel band music, put on a marvellous opening ceremony.

Second, the West Indies, a brilliant West Indies at that, defeated Pakistan before a near sell-out crowd in the opening match to hand the tournament a superb start.

On top of that, with Ireland staging a brilliant comeback to tie with Zimbabwe, with New Zealand defeating England, with Bangladesh nailing India, with the teams scoring lots of runs and the batsmen reeling off many exciting strokes - including Herschelle Gibbs who slammed six sixes in one over, and with Ireland knocking out Pakistan, it was cricket, lovely cricket.

Apart from the failure of Pakistan to make it through to the second round, the tournament suffered a blow on that fateful Sunday when Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was found dead in his room, and both the tournament and, for obvious reasons, the country, suffered a really huge blow when it was later labelled by the police as murder.

That really put a damper on the tournament and threatens to wipe away some of the lustre - to prevent it from being the best ever.

There are some other things working against Dehring putting on the best ever World Cup, however, and apart from the absence of the hundreds of thousands of visitors to the region - and especially so England's Barmy Army, one must be, not so much the absence of Pakistan from the second round, but also that of India who are also on the way home after losing first to Bangladesh and then to Sri Lanka.

The Barmy Army

There is, and has always been, a possibility that the Barmy Army, who must be tired from their travels to the Ashes series in Australia, along with others from North America, would make it to the second round and hopefully that possibility will become a reality.

With Pakistan and India missing in action, however, it is hardly likely that there will be many from North America, and that will be a big blow as far as the income from the tournament is concerned.

Television is basically what finances the World Cup, television is what attracts the big sponsors, television is controlled by India and because of that, the absence of India can be and promises to be the big blow, financially.

Of the four countries from the East, the big two - India and Pakistan - are out. It is the little two - Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - that are in, and especially that India are out, that is bound to affect the viewership and, therefore, the returns for the sponsors.

If that happens, there will be some unhappy people around, and like South Africa who suffered after 2003, the West Indies may suffer after this World Cup - probably even worse than South Africa.

After the 2003 tournament, Global Cricket Corporation held on to some US$50,000 of their payment to South Africa on the basis that they failed to protect some of their sponsors from ambush marketing, and if the absence of India has any effect on the attendance, if the attendance has any effect on television and therefore on the sponsors, it would not be surprising if the West Indies is also accused of, among other things, failing to protect their sponsors.

Hopefully that does not happen. Apart from being tough on Dehring, apart from making sure that this World Cup would not be the best ever despite Matthew Hayden's record-breaking century off 66 deliveries, it would also rob West Indies cricket of what little, for many reasons, it now seems set to earn from the World Cup.

There will be some unhappy people around, and like South Africa who suffered after 2003, the West Indies may suffer after this World Cup - probably even worse than South Africa.