Restrictions give carnival sober look (18 May 1999)

18 May 1999

Restrictions give carnival sober look

Michael Henderson

The World Cup is only four days old and the intention of turning it into a "carnival of cricket", in accordance with the organisers' wishes, is already proving difficult.

For the first time spectators will not be allowed to bring alcohol into the St Lawrence ground in Canterbury, where England play Kenya today, and there will be no games on the outfield.

Canterbury, like Worcester, where the Australian batsmen were jostled by the crowd on Sunday, and Hove, where Indian fielders were abused on Saturday, are not the sort of places normally associated with bad behaviour.

Yet, as a crowd of 10,000 gathers to watch England's second game, the carnival will be elsewhere. To picnic by the giant lime tree at Canterbury, or by the Severn at Worcester, is to subscribe to an ancient pageant. Today it is a pageant honoured by the breach, rather than the observance.

In addition, the bars around the ground will close in the afternoon, to give drinkers a "cooling-off" period. The hope is to nip in the bud the sort of crowd scenes that marred the game at Worcester, where Steve Waugh drew attention to a lack of security.

"I got jostled out there," Waugh said, after leading his team to victory by six wickets against Scotland. Australia are particularly sensitive to crowd misbehaviour at the moment, having been bombarded with missiles at recent one-day internationals.

Tim Lamb, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, said before the tournament began that the organisers wanted to bring "the fun of the fair" to the World Cup. Yesterday he denied that the restrictions at Canterbury rescinded that edict. "There will be games of Kwik-cricket on the outfield," he said. "This is an opportunity for local children to take part in games at their county ground."

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)