Lorgat allays fears of World Cup venue delays

MELBOURNE - International Cricket Council (ICC) chief Haroon Lorgat said that work at five World Cup venues is running behind schedule, but exuded confidence that it will be completed in time for the event to begin Feb 19.

The World Cup is being co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and Lorgat said there will be no last-minute scampering like the Delhi Commonwealth Games to get the venues ready.

Kolkata’s Eden Gardens and Mumbai’s Wankhade Stadium, the venue for the final April 2, are two of those stadiums where work in going on at a rapid pace.

“You’re probably referring to Kolkata or Wankhede,” Lorgat said when asked about the preparedness of the venues.

“Five stadiums are slightly behind schedule but we’ll be done before the start of the World Cup. Most of the stadiums are complete and ready. There are no alarm bells ringing. I’m sure that we’ll be ready well before the start of the World Cup,” Lorgat told a press conference here Saturday.

“We would have liked them to have been completed. I certainly do not envisage, and all of our reports do not indicate, anything like what transpired during the Commonwealth Games,” he said.

Lorgat also dismissed all security concerns raised for the cricketing extravaganza.

“We have matured a lot in terms of infrastructure, capacity, expertise, probably experience as well in terms of managing safety and security issues.”

“All full-members (of the ICC) have now got a security manager and the ICC too has got a security manager, unlike in the past where we might have been relying entirely on independent experts or police agencies to provide the security,” Lorgat said.

“Even in India now, with safety and security there is a lot of experience. With all of the internationals having been played there, with the Indian Premier League having been run there, it is a much more mature and robust process,” he said.