Jay Shah makes whistle-stop visit to Wanderers, Centurion

It isn't every day Jay Shah comes to town, but the Titans were prepared on Wednesday evening. They had laid out a carpet in BCCI blue, which flowed into a red carpet fit for VVIPs. Inside, a gala dinner awaited. Centurion was ready to receive the ICC chair and former BCCI secretary.

Except that all of the above would have been in place even if the most powerful figure in cricket wasn't on his way to the ground. Wednesday was also the date for the Titans' annual awards. That the occasion coincided with Shah's visit was a happy accident.

In the preceding hours, Shah had been to the Wanderers, which is 36 kilometres southward along a motorway from Centurion, where he was driven by Lions president Mohammad Moosajee. What was he doing in the country?

Shah was on his way back from the ICC board meetings in Zimbabwe from Thursday to Sunday. He stopped over in Botswana en route to South Africa, from where he was scheduled to leave for India later on Wednesday.

"He hadn't been to the [Wanderers] in a while, so he wanted to have a look around," Jono Leaf-Wright, the Lions chief executive, told Cricbuzz. "We took him everywhere from the media centre to the dressing room to down the tunnel and onto the field. It was really just a walkabout chatting about global cricket. There was no agenda and no official meeting. It was a good catch-up and a relationship-building session."

Not that Shah popping in was as random as it may seem. South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia will host the 2027 men's World Cup, and the Wanderers and Centurion will be among the venues used. Indeed, the final is likely to be in Johannesburg.

South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya staged the 2003 edition of the tournament, and grounds were extensively upgraded beforehand. But that was 22 years ago and much has changed.

For one thing, South Africa are planning to use drop-in pitches at the Wanderers, Centurion, Kingsmead and Newlands to try and ensure consistency and quality. There were no drop-in surfaces in South Africa in 2003. For another, floodlight technology has come a long way since those days. While some of South Africa's venues gleam brightly under the most modern illumination available, that isn't yet the case everywhere. Also, the fact that an epic thunderstorm hit the Highveld on Wednesday afternoon will give Shah a good idea of the state of the drainage at the two grounds. He should be satisfied with the latter: the Wanderers and Centurion are veritable turf-covered colanders.

Even though the tournament is still more than two years away, it bodes well that Shah wants to appraise first-hand the readiness of grounds for the global showpiece. Far rather that than suffer a nasty surprise further down the line.

Besides, if you can lunch at the Wanderers and dinner at Centurion, and make your flight back to Ahmedabad all in the same few hours, why wouldn't you?