Snedden slams World Cup

Martin Snedden has rated the World Cup as "average to poor", with the length of the tournament and the quality of cricket played two of his primary concerns. Snedden, who finished as New Zealand Cricket's chief executive in May to take up a role organising the 2011 Rugby World Cup, will use the Caribbean tournament as a prime example of what not to do with major sporting event.

The Herald on Sunday reported that Snedden had prepared a review of the event that he would table with the ICC. His criticisms included that the seven-week tournament was too long, five of the major teams performed badly, Bob Woolmer's death cast a pall over the event and was poorly handled by police, and hotel and travel prices in the West Indies were exorbitant.

Snedden said slow pitches were partially to blame for the disappointing standard of cricket but the ICC could not be held solely responsible. "India, Pakistan, England, the West Indies and South Africa were so poor that out of 52 games, you had very few close finishes and very little good quality games," Snedden said in the paper.

"Australia played well, Sri Lanka played well, New Zealand played well until the end and I suppose you can say Bangladesh played well. But really five teams playing as they did was detrimental to the tournament and it's something out of the control of the tournament organiser. For a tournament to be successful, you need the host nation to be competitive and playing well for most of the tournament. The West Indies effectively collapsed and were hopeless."

The difficulties faced by the organisers - nine nations hosted matches, including warm-up games - were significant, Snedden said, and the failure of the home team to be competitive was a major blow.