NOT FIT to grow carrots!

It was an amusing but nevertheless damning assessment of the National Sports Centre cricket wicket on which Bermuda still harbours hopes of hosting matches in the 2007 World Cup.

International Cricket Council (ICC) pitch expert Andy Atkinson made the comment after analysis of the Frog Lane strip during a whirlwind visit last weekend.

In short, he told authorities such was the make-up of the controversial wicket it wasn?t suitable for schoolboy cricket let alone the world?s most prestigious tournament.

But if the results of his inspection came as a surprise, they can?t have been any more surprising than the remarks of chairman of the NSC trustees, Dr. Gerard Bean, who candidly admitted that he and others on his board had known all along that the wicket wasn?t and would never be fit for first class cricket.

To get the wicket they wanted, they would have had to import special clay which they claim wasn?t possible under strict Government regulations. And as such an application to import the correct type of clay was never even made.

Pity the public and the players were never told as much in the first place. If this fact had been established for a couple of years then why on earth were we continuing to waste time and effort, not to mention taxpayers? dollars, on cultivating a wicket that according to Atkinson could never withstand the rigours of an international one-day match, let alone a Test match?

If the pitch was always going to disintegrate into dust, as witnessed during last summer?s international fixtures, then why wasn?t a special and urgent effort made to persuade the relevant authorities to relax those regulations which keep a tight rein over agricultural importation?

Such exceptions, we understand, have already been made to accommodate at least one of the Island?s golf courses.

The NSC cricket facility, along with the neighbouring football and athletic stadium, is Bermuda?s major sporting showpiece. Wouldn?t it have made so much more sense to get it right from the beginning rather than muddling through more than two years in the full knowledge that there was never any hope of producing a proper pitch?

Hopefully, once Atkinson submits his full report, work can begin immediately on ensuring that the correct type of clay is made available to lay a wicket which will comply with ICC standards.

And if we can?t make that guarantee, then why are we bothering to forge ahead with extremely costly plans to host at worst warm-up games for the World Cup or at best, in the event of another country pulling out, the main event itself?

Without the basic ingredient ? a pitch that adheres to international standards ? there doesn?t seem much point.

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NO DISRESPECT intended ? although the following will no doubt be considered in some quarters as totally disrespectful ? but whose bright idea was it to insert a ?media clause? into the Code of Ethics and Conduct for Sport which was released yesterday.

Hardly surprisingly, it?s been greeted in this office with a few chuckles and little else.

In fact, the media page has already been torn out of the booklet and tossed into the waste paper basket where it belongs.

If we in the media want Government?s advice on how to conduct our business, whether it involves sport or any other news related matter, then we?ll ask for it.

But given this and the last Government?s record on public relations, that?s hardly likely to happen.

Of course, that isn?t the point here.

The point is that in any democratic society there has to be a free press and freedom of speech.

As innocuous as a media code of conduct might seem, it smacks of Government censorship. And those in Cabinet should know better.

No matter how honourable Government?s intentions, they can?t be telling the media how and how not to report the news, or even how to behave.

As with any newspaper, the Gazette would like to think it can set its own standards based on free press traditions worldwide. Fair, balanced, informed, accurate and objective reporting should be the goal towards which all journalists strive, and generally we?d like to think those are the hallmarks of the coverage which we offer on a daily basis.

There are always going to be those who feel such lofty standards aren?t upheld. And hopefully there?s nobody daft enough in this building to suggest we don?t get it wrong on more occasions than we?d like.

But the last thing any society should be subjected to is an interfering Government laying down guidelines as to how the media should do their job. Time might be better spent getting their own house in order.

If we?re to be society?s watchdogs, Government can?t be holding the leash.

The code of conduct, as it relates to the Press, in essence only reiterates standards which have long been accepted in the profession, both here and everywhere else.

But it has no place in this particular document. We don?t need Government to tell us how to do our job. And it can?t be thrust upon those whose very responsibility it is to report the facts whenever that code is breached.