Organisers pitch in to halt the invasions (26 May 1999)

26 May 1999

Organisers pitch in to halt the invasions

Mihir Bose

The World Cup organisers will meet at Edgbaston tomorrow to review security. The meeting has been called following pitch invasions, particularly in the Australia v Pakistan match which led Steve Waugh, the Australian captain, to repeat his fears that if something is not done a player could be hurt.

In Australia, spectators can be fined or banned for life and the Edgbaston meeting will try to persuade the Home Office to extend the legislation directed against football pitch invasions. The Home Secretary has the power to do so by special decree and this would make the legislation effective immediately.

Whether any such drastic action needs to be taken is debatable, for not all matches have produced the sort of emotion seen in matches involving India and Pakistan. Certainly when South Africa play Pakistan at Trent Bridge in the Super Six - assuming both teams top their groups - the atmosphere will be very different and might provide the organisers their first real test of crowd control, two of the best teams battling in front of volatile supporters.

At Trent Bridge yesterday England's victory was determined the moment Alec Stewart won the toss. Stewart spent the winter losing tosses but has won four in a row and joked he had improved after Ted Dexter sent him to Las Vegas. England's performance, however, was no joke and so high on professional cricketing ability - and low on adrenalin - that the problem was generating emotion, not curbing it.

The first rendition of "Ingerlund, Ingerlund, Ingerlund" did not come until 5pm, when England were 30 runs short of victory. The high point, if it can be called that, came after the match, when a blonde appeared on the fine-leg boundary and removed her top. This raised more adrenalin than all the swingers that Alan Mullally had delivered, not least from the policemen who escorted her away.

The comments of the Zimbabwe captain, Alistair Campbell, and Stewart suggest that they also feel too much should not be made about the pitch invasions. Stewart said: "I can see where Steve is coming from," referring to the Australian experience in the West Indies, but while he noted that security needed reviewing, he also emphasised that crowds coming on to a cricket field after a match is a great English tradition and very much part of the end of the match. Overseas this is unknown.

The difference this time is that the crowds head for the stumps, and here the umpires could be encouraged to remove them and avoid the danger of a stampede.

Similar words of caution were being expressed by many at Trent Bridge, including Nat Puri, an Indian-born industrialist and patron of Nottingham cricket (he helped fund one of the stands). He has watched India's and England's games and will be at Taunton today.

Puri said: "I think too much is made of security. We have some 8,000 people at Trent Bridge. To stop them going on to the ground would require 5,000 policemen. Emotion is not a bad thing. If India win I will leave my box and [would] like to go on. I was at Hove and I feel the incidents narrated were over-dramatised. It will be a sad day if, in England, we stop people from coming on at the end of the match."

Many at Trent Bridge feel the organisers would be better advised to look at the ticketing arrangements, which are still causing teething problems and created quite a few headaches before the Nottinghamshire county staff sorted things out.

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