Lorgat - they were pebbles

[shivfan]

Hmm. Well, either they were bloody big pebbles, in which case they should've been taken from the crowd in the initial security search or whoever threw them got close enough to hurl a small pebble with enough force to crack a toughened bus windscreen, in which case the crowd should never have been allowed that close to the bus in the first place.

It's not the biggest problem, but clearly steps could've been taken that weren't.

Exactly....

Ian Pont (who was there, while Lorgat was not) spoke about bricks being thrown. If one of those bricks had splintered the glass instead of shattering it, it could've been worse. If a brick had hit a WI player on the head, we could've had a fatality on our hands. It's not something to sweep under the carpet by trivialising it by referring to them as pebbles.

What will Bangladesh and the ICC do differently to prevent a recurrence of such an incident? Because, the way Bangladesh are playing, there are many more thrashings to come....

 

[shivfan]

The pebbles could have been found on the ground, I highly doubt the fans sneaked stones past the security just to throw them. Anyways, no doubt they could've widened the gap between civilians and the bus, might have helped, might have not. It's not really that big a blunder or an issue by the BCB, mostly played up by Gayle's tweets

According to one of the articles, the incident occurred on a highway outside of the security-cordoned-off area, so they had no control over what missiles were thrown. I don't know why some of us are so quick to accept that it was pebbles, because that sounds like a ridiculous down-playing of the incident by Lorgat. He's totally disregarded the first-hand experiences of Ian Pont, Chris Gayle and Nikita Miller (who also tweeted on the matter).

If a brick hits a window and shatters it, it's understandable that the WI players are going to be frightened. The first thought that flies thru their heads is the experiences of SL players in Pakistan. That's not an unreasonable thought, now is it?

 

[flibbertyjibber]

If a brick hits a window and shatters it, it's understandable that the WI players are going to be frightened. The first thought that flies thru their heads is the experiences of SL players in Pakistan. That's not an unreasonable thought, now is it?

That is what crossed my mind when i first heard about it so the players involved will surely have done.

 

[shivfan]

World Cup Tour Diaries | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

"However, no amount of good behaviour, no amount of apologising can make up for what happened last night. For the most important issue right now is not the image of the Bangladeshi fan. It’s that there was a security breach last night and no authority right now is ready to acknowledge it. It’s that last night Chris Gayle felt unsafe in the country. That he wondered how, if those responsible for security couldn’t keep stones away, they would keep bullets away. When your house is robbed, you don’t debate the robbers’ moral make-up, you think of how you could have protected your house better.

"The incident has evoked reactions from the three main parties: the police, BCB and ICC. All three reactions have been shoddy. The police, for some reason, thought that they needed to stress that the people were attacking their own countrymen, not the visitors, and that it was a case of mistaken identity. Not only is that version not accurate – ESPNcricinfo learned later in the night that both buses were hit and there wasn’t much to tell one bus from the other – but it beggared belief how attacking Bangladesh players can be seen as a smaller security failure than attacking the West Indians."

It couldn't have been said better....

 

[cricpk]

At First i would have laughed at it by thinking that Thank God Pakistani people do bear losses but on the other hand i feel ashamed that People bear losses now but some (Debatable Who) don't throw pebbles, they throw granades So thank God we don't have any home match for few years now.

 

[wellAlbidarned]

The big problem here, is that if you can hit it with a brick, you can most certainly shoot it with a gun. The players have every right to be pissed, could've been far worse very easily.

 

[Daemon]

According to one of the articles, the incident occurred on a highway outside of the security-cordoned-off area, so they had no control over what missiles were thrown. I don't know why some of us are so quick to accept that it was pebbles, because that sounds like a ridiculous down-playing of the incident by Lorgat. He's totally disregarded the first-hand experiences of Ian Pont, Chris Gayle and Nikita Miller (who also tweeted on the matter).

If a brick hits a window and shatters it, it's understandable that the WI players are going to be frightened. The first thought that flies thru their heads is the experiences of SL players in Pakistan. That's not an unreasonable thought, now is it?

Then tell me what you would do to prevent people from throwing stones/bricks/rocks/pebbles that can be found on the ground from a public area (highway) to the bus? It doesn't really matter whether they were stones or bricks or whatever anyways, and fyi, a rock is harder than a brick. A brick would shatter if you simply threw it on the ground a couple of times.

I'm not arguing against the fact that Gayle and co. can't be scared, it's just that they can't expect much from the BCB to have prevented this situation. We don't know whether the bus had bulletproof glass or not and we don't know how big the highway they were on was or how far away from the stadium it was so I don't think it's right for us to criticise the security measures.

George Bush had a goddamn shoe thrown at him, could they have prevented that from happening? It's the same thing here, only on a larger scale.

 

[Smudge]

Exactly....

Ian Pont (who was there, while Lorgat was not) spoke about bricks being thrown.

Apparently he spotted one young Bangladeshi with a particularly impressive throwing action and is currently working with him in private in order to turn him into the next pace-bowling superstar....

 

[Quaggas]

Given what happened to the Sri Lankan players not so long back, I am surprised the buses aren't bullet-proof. I don't care how expensive it is; this is the World Cup for God's sake!

+1. This is ridiculous - off with their heads.

 

[Jono]

This is a perfect example of why the ICC is one of the most pathetic sporting bodies in the world. Just interested in protecting their own arse.

 

[Noble One]

Agree. I don't think any sporting body has more self-interest than the ICC. Instead of coming out with an action plan of how they can improve security, or actions taken to prevent this from happening again they are only interested in downplaying the incident and justifying why it isn't their issue.

This is the showpiece of cricket and we have a West Indian team sitting in fear on the bus thinking their lives may end. That is not good.

 

[sudhindra9]

Pebbles! Fanatics, those people. Not fans.

 

[Daemon]

For those calling the ICC idiots, what would you have done? Do you even know what measures were put in place? Do you know where exactly the bus was pelted at? Don't you think its near impossible to stop a civilian from picking up a stone on the floor and hurling it at a bus on a highway? You can't have policemen lining the highway shoulder to shoulder, and blocking all traffic be it human or vehicles for the entire journey of the bus from the ground to the hotel. To stop this kind of thing from happening you would have to have a freaking 50m radius of no civilians around the buses ffs

Although I do think its idiotic of the police to justify it by claiming the BD bus got hit too =/

 

[shivfan]

this story gets the points I'm making better than anything....

http://www.windiesfans.com/index.ph...after-fans-attacked-west-indies-team-bus.html

'A day after the stone-pelting incident in Dhaka, where frustrated Bangladeshi fans attacked the West Indies team bus, Bangladesh today stepped up the security set-up for the remaining World Cup ties. "We have enhanced the security arrangements for the World Cup," said the security director of the tournament's local organising committee, Mesbah Uddin Serniabat. "We will keep pedestrians away from the team buses and motorcade while police teams will be patrolling the streets more intensively," Serniabat said.

'Some agitated fans yesterday hurled stones at the bus, carrying the West Indian players shortly after the team left the Sher-e-bangla stadium after inflicting a humiliating defeat on the hosts. Haroon Lorgat, who condemned the attack. Police and the elite Rapid Action Battalion have so far arrested 38 suspects in the aftermath of the incident, which drew the attention of the ICC chief executive.'

1) It doesn't take 38 people to throw a 'couple of pebbles' at the bus. Lorgat was insulting the West Indies by trivialising the incident, and dismissing it in that manner....

2) Security arrangements were clearly inadequate. Those arrangements that they're talking about should've been done before the incident took place, not after. There is a sense that the Bangladeshis were complacent, and were caught napping by this incident.

 

[Sanz]

If it's important then surely it needs looked at now?

Sadly, in light of what happened to the Sri Lanka team in Pakistan, I don't think you can take the issue of security on the subcontinent too seriously. Something's gone seriously wrong here, and it needs investigating now.

???

Are you really serious here ?

 

[Sanz]

Then tell me what you would do to prevent people from throwing stones/bricks/rocks/pebbles that can be found on the ground from a public area (highway) to the bus? It doesn't really matter whether they were stones or bricks or whatever anyways, and fyi, a rock is harder than a brick. A brick would shatter if you simply threw it on the ground a couple of times.

It is not the CW members' job to figure that out. But the least ICC could do is to not make light of the situation. Secondly, every country MUST do its best to protect the players and officials. In this case, I would like to see the people, who threw stones , punished in some way, that is the only way to stop such behavior in the future.

 

[Spark]

???

Are you really serious here ?

I think this is a case of ambiguous wording, it was meant in the form of "not capable of taking it too seriously" ie impossible to overstate the importance of it.

 

[shivfan]

I totally agree with what Gibson has to say on the issue....

World Cup 2011: West Indies coach slams 'ridiculous' ICC statement | Cricket News | ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 | ESPN Cricinfo

'Ottis Gibson, the West Indies coach, has said it was "ridiculous" for ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat to dismiss the stone-throwing incident involving the West Indies team bus as minor. "I just want to make it clear first of all and remind Haroon Lorgat of his responsibility," Gibson said. "He can't sit in a hotel room in Chennai and say they were pebbles. What we heard hitting the bus and smashing glass didn't seem to us to be pebbles. So it is not fair to make a statement like that. We as management of West Indies team here believe that was a ridiculous statement to make." '

The throwing of large stones in public disputes is a practice that occurs regularly in the Caribbean too (I was personally subjected to one such attack growing up in Kingston), so Caribbean people do know the difference between the use of 'pebbles' and large stones....

 

[Burgey]

Apparently he spotted one young Bangladeshi with a particularly impressive throwing action and is currently working with him in private in order to turn him into the next pace-bowling superstar....

Not going to let this go unquoted.

As for the issue, it's a worry. One would hope there is at least tempered, if not bulletproof glass on the coaches the teams are traveling in.

 

[Smudge]

Not going to let this go unquoted.

Thank you. I'd been waiting a while...