ICC World Cup 2011: Ratnakar Shetty dismisses venue preparation concerns
With less than four weeks to go for the esteemed ICC World Cup 2011, there are concerns regarding the preparedness of the venues scheduled to stage the mega cricketing event.
However, tournament director Ratnakar Shetty has dismissed all such concerns and has said that all the venues are on course to host the World Cup matches.
“As far as we are concerned, all the 13 venues which are going to stage the World Cup are coming up very well and we don't see any reason of concern,” said Shetty on Monday.
The tournament director criticised the media for creating hype over the matter as he said, “I think the concerns are more in the media than anything else.”
The main causes of concern are Wankhede stadium in Mumbai and Eden Gardens in Kolkata, which have undergone a lot of renovation and have gone beyond their deadlines to complete the construction work twice.
However, Shetty said that both the venues were now on track. Wankhede, the venue to host World Cup final on 2 April, 2011, has had all its stands completely reconstructed while the Kolkata venue had two stands renovated.
On Monday, a three-member International Cricket Council team visited the Wankhede stadium to inspect the facilities available at the venue and the progress of work ahead of the extravaganza. The team included stadium consultant Eugene
van Vuuren, events manager Chris Tetley and the general commercial manager of ICC, Mr. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Campbell-c49176 Jamieson. The deadline to complete the construction work is 31 January, 2011.
The ICC team after inspecting the facilities left the venue without commenting on their statuses. The official version of the visit will be conveyed later.
The team will now visit Eden Gardens on Tuesday, a venue to host four World Cup matches. The http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mumbai-c820 venue, on the other hand, will host two more matches besides the tournament final.
India, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur.
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