We’re just six weeks away from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, but quite a few venues including India's most prominent stadiums are showing messy scenes of cranes and rubble, thus raising doubts about their readiness well in time.
The tournament is going to start, being co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, from February 19, will draw huge crowds and worldwide television audiences drawn by the best international players competing in 49 matches.
But the preparations threatens to be a replay of New Delhi's recent Commonwealth Games, which instead of marking the arrival of a new, modern India on the world stage became a national embarrassment of delays, shoddy works, and alleged corruption.
As the cricket clock ticks down, anxiety is growing over the preparedness of organisers, with a ten-million-dollar upgrade to the 80,000-seater Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata causing the biggest headache.
Amid the diggers, dust and bare concrete, hundreds of labourers wearing virtually no safety equipment are toiling day and night to finish off two new blocks of stands which are still covered in scaffolding.
Pillars rise out of the new stands awaiting roofs that have not been begun, while the club house is still under renovation, with many toilets broken or blocked. Old team photographs are covered in builders' dust.
Seats are not fitted in many tiers, the outer wall surrounding the venue has collapsed in sections, corporate boxes are far from complete, and parts of the stadium are still being dug up.
The ground -- one of the great pilgrimage sites of international cricket -- also has major security problems, with curious members of the public free to walk around it despite the risks of militant attacks in volatile South Asia.
The situation with the World Cup venues is similar to the preparations for the Commonwealth Games, which were undermined by delayed and scruffily finished
venues after months of hurried work.
Mumbai's Wankhede stadium, where the final will be held, is another venue rushing to be ready on time after two years of renovations at a cost of 55 million dollars.
A report by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport's governing body, leaked to the Deccan Herald newspaper last month named Wankhede, along with Eden Gardens, as not certain to meet a January 31 deadline for hand-over to the ICC.
The report said areas of concern include the floodlights' power supply, new glass that reflects into batsmen's eyes, the umpires' room put in the wrong place and unsuitable anti-doping facilities and medical rooms.
New Delhi's ground -- the Feroz Shah Kotla -- had a crisis in 2009 when a game against Sri Lanka was abandoned after the pitch was deemed too dangerous, but inspectors have since passed the surface following a complete re-lay.
Sri Lanka is confident that its two brand new stadiums -- one in Kandy costing nine million dollars and another in Hambantota costing 13.6 million dollars -- will cope with the rigours of World Cup cricket and large crowds despite being largely untested.
And in Bangladesh, which has never hosted a major sporting tournament before, officials have reassured excited fans that preparations are in full swing with 42 million dollars being spent sprucing up venues.
Tournament director Ratnakar Shetty said that all venues would be completed and tidied up in time for the first ball to be bowled.
