Despite Bob Woolmer’s murder, players and coaches at the Cricket World Cup remain within easy reach of those who could do them harm.
The death of Pakistan coach Woolmer, who Jamaican police say was strangled in his hotel room in Kingston on March 18, sparked criticism from their camp that there was not adequate security for the teams.
Yet two weeks on, anyone without accreditation could still gain easy access to team training sessions, Reuters discovered over the weekend.
Mickey Arthur, the coach of world number one ranked team South Africa, said he was ”concerned” by the observations.
Police at South Africa’s practice at the Everest Club in Georgetown, Guyana on Saturday asked no questions when two reporters, including one from Reuters, walked past them without displaying their accreditation.
Not asked
Two members of the public passed the police ahead of the journalists and were also not asked for any identification.
The journalists, who did have their bags searched when they arrived, participated in news conferences with players and coaches, and left the ground without being asked the reasons for their presence.
Arthur was taken aback when Reuters told him that unaccredited people could put themselves in range of his players at training sessions.
”Until you brought that to my attention, I hadn’t even given it a thought,” Arthur said. ”That’s thought-provoking and it does concern me that anyone could walk into a practice session and disrupt it.
”Perhaps something should be done about that, maybe we need stricter security around the nets.”
One of the journalists, a senior member of the South African press corps who asked not to be named, agreed with Arthur.
”It does seem odd in the wake of what happened to Woolmer that we didn’t need our accreditation to be able to stand within a metre of the players while we asked them questions,” he told Reuters.
”Most of us are known to the players and the media managers, but someone with ulterior motives could get just as close to the players.”
Unaccredited people
The World Cup security director, John Collymore, defended the policy of allowing unaccredited people into training sessions.
”Every effort has been made to expose the public to the teams, and vice versa,” Collymore told Reuters.
”The venue is not in a lockdown situation at a training session.”
Asked if the policy could lead to breaches of security, Collymore said: ”Anything has the potential to be a breach of security. People also have access to her Majesty the Queen’s quarters.”
Rory Steyn, who once guarded the former South African president Nelson Mandela and was also involved with the 2003 World Cup, is a security consultant at the current tournament.
While he insisted that overall he was satisfied with arrangements, he admitted he was concerned by the lack of experience of many of the security team in the Caribbean.
”The start of the event was rockier than we would have liked, because we weren’t able to train our staff properly,” he told Reuters in an interview.
”You’re asking a cadre of security staff to secure a venue, and they don’t know what it looks like because of all the temporary stands and other overlay that has been applied to the stadia.
”Also, the security teams here are just not experienced enough in hosting a World Cup. They’ve had big tours but now it’s 16 teams in one big event and they’re just not used to it.”
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has been heavily criticised by Patrick Ronan, who headed the security directorate at the 2003 World Cup in South Africa.
Ronan told the Star newspaper in Johannesburg that the WICB had rejected the security manual that had been used during the 2003 tournament.
”If they had followed that manual, if they had implemented the measures as stated in the manual, then none of this (Woolmer death) would have happened,” the paper quoted Ronan as saying.
”During the last World Cup here, they [the WICB] criticised us for being over the top. This incident is a prime example of why security should never be taken lightly.”
Steyn declined to respond to Ronan’s comments except to say, ”I don’t want to get into a slanging match but I’m not sure how fair it is for someone to say those things from such a long way away.”
Steyn was satisfied with the general standard of security at the tournament, which was a joint operation between West Indian and British security experts.
”We’ve enlisted the expertise of UK-based sports event specialists who are responsible for security at Old Trafford and Twickenham,” Steyn said.
”They are training the stadium security teams at all the venues. Each venue will host six matches and for the first three games the British specialists will work in conjunction with the local security staff.
”For the last three games at each venue, the job will be handed over to the locals. This will leave a legacy of 200 to 400 people trained to provide security at major sports events.” – Reuters