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World Cup Cricket 2007 has so far failed to attract the expected number of fans in the stadiums over the Caribbean region. So, you can easily realize that the organizers are not making a lot of money from ticket sale. Steve Waugh, former captain of Australian cricket team, thinks that the organizers could use the craze of the world cup to attract the children of the Caribbean region to cricket and these children would be torch bearer of West Indies cricket in future. He stated that the organizers have failed to use the ongoing cricket craze and thus they had lost a great chance to revive the past glory of West Indies cricket.

Daily Times reported:

“Obviously the ticket prices are too high. I think the Caribbean has missed a great opportunity to educate the young kids about cricket,” Waugh told reporters on Monday at the Laureus sports awards in Barcelona. “If anything you’d think they’d let them in for nothing. They should have asked the common people what they should have been doing. It’s pretty obvious what they should have been doing. Why overcharge when it’s a great chance for the Caribbean to showcase what they’ve got and get kids back into cricket?”

Too expensive: Ticket prices starting from $25 have proved to be too expensive for many locals. St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas defended the prices even though the per capita income in his tiny nation was $8,000. “Our residents have had some time to save,” he said last month while group matches were being contested on the island. The shock first-round exits of India and Pakistan have also had an impact as fans who had been expected to travel to the Caribbean for the second-round matches have stayed away. Some islands have given school children the day off to attend matches and swell the crowds. Not many, however, have been seen at the grounds.

The sad part is that though some of the islands have given a chance to the school children to get into the stadiums for free, it did not make any visible impact in the stadiums. I think letting the children come to the stadiums for free is not enough to attract them to cricket. Over the last decade, it has been reported many times that the children of the Caribbean region were getting interested to other sports considering the financial advantages. That is why, not only the organizers but also ICC should come forward to take some effective initiatives to attract the children of the Caribbean region to cricket.