CATEGORY:SPECIAL EVENT
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By Wallace J.A
Inside Grenada correspondent
Tuesday October 31,2006


ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada: Grenada is now one step nearer towards hosting the ‘Super Eight’ cricket matches in the ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007.Yesterday (Monday October 30), the Grenada Parliament convened and the much talked about “Sunset Legislation” was passes after the bill received full bipartisan support.

The nine countries in the Caribbean that were selected to host games in the biggest cricket exhibition to come to the region in its entire history - the CWC 2007 – were expected to meet a number of conditions set out by the International Cricket Council (ICC). One of the key prerequisites needed to host matches in the CWC 2007 is the passage of ‘a package of laws’ known as the Sunset Legislation which addresses a number of critical areas like tourist visas, sale of tickets, broadcast of the tournament, security and copyright issues. These laws are not permanent and are scheduled to last for only six-months, after which they will automatically expire (hence the reason why they are called the Sunset Legislation).

These nine host nations were given up to November 01, 2006 to pass these laws. A failure to do so could have resulted in the World Cup Cricket matches going to South Africa instead, notwithstanding the millions of dollars that these countries would have invested in the construction of modern, state-of-the–art stadia and other infrastructural projects. It was because of this urgency that this bill was passed in a single sitting of parliament.

To date, six countries (out of nine) have passed the Sunset Legislation. The remaining countries are expected to follow Grenada’s example and pass the legislation today so as to meet the November 01 deadline laid down by the ICC.

Like so many of the West Indies cricket matches (where our cricketers allow matches to be decided in the last ball in an over), our politicians in the region seem to be raising the anxiety level of the peoples in the Caribbean by also taking things ‘down to the wire’, barely meeting the deadlines laid down by crickets governing body, the ICC.