The Hindu : An 'Olympic' start to the World Cup

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 09, 2003

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An 'Olympic' start to the World Cup

By G. Viswanath

Participating World Cup cricket teams, in rows from front, South Africa, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, England, the Netherlands, India, Kenya, Namibia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe, pose for a photograph against a backdrop of Table Mountain, covered in its "Table Cloth" cloud, in Cape Town, South Africa, on Saturday.

Cape Town Feb. 8 . The English game of cricket known for village atmosphere and social niceties was given an `Olympic' start at the Newlands Cricket Ground here on Saturday night.

Described as the `Ceremonies of Africa' and choreographed by Penny Jones, the two-hour impressive show symbolised the ethos of the African continent in five scenes — Safari, Unity, Ocean, Township and Innovation. The scenes depicted the continent, the country and Cape Town.

The opening ceremony was the brainchild of Aron Bacher, South Africa's familiar face over four decades as a cricketer, administrator, and event organiser and Executive Director of the ICC World Cup.

The day he saw the spectacular opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Dr. Bacher decided to make the inauguration of Africa's first World Cup cricket a centrepiece event.

Conceived essentially as a massive theatre production and staged in a circular field, the first of its kind in Africa, the `Ceremonies of Africa' had the participation of 4500 volunteers, 90 per cent of whom were non-professional performers in the age group 8 to 86. The sheer magnitude of the ceremony necessitated the making of 6500 costumes.

The opening scene `Safari' depicted the motorised guinea fowl, and the mascot of the World Cup, Zebras, besides meerkats, waterpoles, giraffes, sable antelopes, baboons and springboks. `Unity' featured 2500 cast members forming an African necklace representing the country's diversity of cultures.

This was followed by the `Township',`Ocean' and `Innovation' scenes, the last one portraying the constellations present in the southern hemisphere skies.

Cricket could not have been far removed from the spectacular presentation, with the Western Province under-19 cricketers leading the World Cup panel of umpires, referees and the 14 teams.

Present in the audience were the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, and 14 members of his council of Ministers, the former Presidents, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, the Anglican Archbishop, N. Ndungane, and top officials of the ICC, presidents of the member countries' cricketers, Vivian Richards and Sunil Gavaskar.

South Africa, described as the `Cradle of Humankind' took one more step on Saturday night to tell the rest of the world that the rainbow nation is united in all spheres of life and ready to march ahead.

Fittingly, a 35-second pyrotechnic display brought an end to the dazzling show. An estimated television audience in excess of over 1.4 billion watched it.

After all, it must be said that cricket broke fresh ground on Saturday at Newlands and it was apt that South Africa, which has been in the vanguard of making cricket a high profile game, was responsible for taking a leaf out of the Olympics. But cricketers are strictly not amateurs!

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