March 6, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 2, 1424

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JOHANNESBURG, March 5: World Cup organisers are set to spend an uncomfortable two days worrying whether the remainder of their showpiece tournament will be played out in front of half-empty houses.

South Africa’s stunning exit in the rain of Durban on Monday has led to fears that the Super Six, which get underway on Friday, may go mostly unnoticed with fans registering their displeasure with their team’s failings by voting with their feet.

“Everyone is disappointed that South Africa didn’t progress to the Super Sixe,” said Dr Ali Bacher, executive director of the World Cup.

“We have shown the rest of the world we have the capability to host a global sporting event of this nature and we need the country to continue supporting in that way they have.

“I can understand South Africa’s supporters’ predicament, but we need the country to show how important the event is.”

The tournament takes a breather on Wednesday and Thursday before the Super Six stage gets underway with a double-header on Friday when defending champions and overwhelming favourites Australia face Sri Lanka at Centurion and India take on Kenya in a day-nighter at Newlands in Cape Town.

Having carried 12 and 8 points respectively forward from the preliminary round, Australia and India already have taken a huge step towards the semi-finals while the Kenyans, crushed by the West Indies in the last group game, will need the cushion of all of their 10 points in the next stage.

Sri Lanka, champions in 1996, carry forward 7.5 points, New Zealand 4 and Zimbabwe 3.5.

Of the four giants — Pakistan, England, South Africa and West Indies — who are packing their bags and heading off, it is Pakistan who have most reason to fear their journey home.

So concerned by the volatile public reaction back home, they took the unusual step on Wednesday of issuing a public statement apologising for their disastrous campaign which left them with just two wins against Namibia and Holland.

“We are ashamed, disappointed, sad and heart-broken after letting the nation down,” said the statement.

“We knew that we were carrying the hopes of millions of our fans and have failed to live up to expectations. We tried our level best, we trained extremely hard and did everything within our reach.

But things didn’t work the way we would have liked to and we have no excuses to offer.

“The expectations were there because we had world class cricketers. But unfortunately, none of us displayed the talented God has blessed us with.”

On their arrival in Paksitan, the bloodletting will begin with an inquiry already promised to examine the team’s failings.—AFP