The flying fish burger reality

Barbados is approximately 21 miles long and 14 miles wide, or about the size of one of the Kruger National Park's larger watering holes.

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Like most small countries, there is a delicate balance in the relationships between suppliers, traders and consumers, a balance which needs to be constantly recognised and respected by tourists as well as locals. There is enough pie to go around, but only if an orderly queue is maintained and nobody gets too greedy.

Beach Bars, for instance, won't attempt to undercut each other on the price of beer because a short term gain will lead to a soured relationship and long term loss. There may be 20 taxis on the rank, but the one at the front is the one you are directed to when you need a lift. Well, mostly.

Consequently Bajans have been ill prepared for the realities of an ICC World Cup. My good friends at the International Cricket Council have already chided me once in recent weeks for being overly critical of the ferocity and ruthlessness of their commercial partners, so let me say I'm not being critical - I'm simply recording the facts as they present themselves to me and as they are told to me.

It has been nigh on impossible to find a Bajan cricket follower who has not been adversely affected by the regulations and restrictions of an ICC event. South Africans, of course, are all too familiar with them having experienced the first 'new world' event four years ago. The sight of a desperate and angry family of four standing outside the gates of the stadium in East London, having driven three hours to get there and then told they had to park two kilometres away, and then having carried the cool box and camp chairs and walked with the kids, only to be told that none of it could be brought inside, was desperate. All they had done was repeated what they had always done when coming to the big city to watch their annual ODI.

And so it is with the Bajans, and the Trinis, the Antiguans, Jamaicans and Guyanese.

"We can't take our rum or our picnics, not even a drink of water into the grounds. No plastic bottles...what is that for?" asks my taxi driver, Margaurita Haynes, one of only three lady taxi drivers in Bridgetown, she tells me proudly.

"The ticket prices are too high - we can't afford them - and if we could then we can't have a good time and watch the cricket like we have always done. And all the people who sell food and drinks around the ground, outside the ground, they been cleared away. They can't earn their living any more during the World Cup. It's not right, I mean, I don't understand it, but it doesn't seem right. My cousin has been selling flying fish outside the Kensington Oval for 20 years, now she can't. But everyone tells us that the World Cup is for all the people of Barbados. It doesn't feel like it," says Haynes, whose answer to the obvious question - are you related to Desmond - is: "All the Haynes of Barbados is related somewhere down the line."

No doubt this will still be a lovely World Cup. But it will be a shame if the locals feel shunned and the travelling supporters remember the beaches and parties more than the games.

The new regulations, which are as much about making money as they are about security, cost the 2003 event its soul and robbed it of much of its South African flavour. Cricket in the Caribbean means dancing, drinking rum, playing music and having a party. It always has. The challenge for the ICC and event organisers is to make sure the restrictive regulations don't rob the 2007 event of that magic.