Tony Becca, Contributing Editor

The curtain came down on Cricket World Cup 2007 with a grand closing ceremony featuring music, dancing and spectacular fireworks at Kensington Oval on Saturday.

Shortly after opening batsman Adam Gilchrist had won the title for Australia with a superb and glittering performance which included 13 fours and eight sixes on a day when 40 fours and 12 sixes were hit, some 1,000 performers, mostly from Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, thanked the cricketers and bade farewell to the thousands of visitors with an equally glittering ceremony that lasted for just under one hour.

Starting with 300 young children with red ribbons forming a "human" Aids Ribbon on the field, and a 48-second clip in support of the Unite Against Aids campaign with UK pop star Elton John, a 37-member band of musicians from Barbados provided Caribbean style music.

Tributes paid

Also in action were Caribbean soca queen Alison Hinds who performed a medley of songs and international saxophonist and jazz artist Arturo Tappin who, standing on the balcony of the Garfield Sobers Pavilion, paid tribute to the great Barbadian and West Indian cricketer, Sir Garfield Sobers.

Other performers included the Mighty Gabby who thrilled thecrowd with his cricket calypso, Hit It, and Rupee, the producer of the official song of the World Cup.

Following the presentation to Australia's captain Ricky Ponting, confetti fluttered across the ground in a performance described by Peter Minshall, the artistic director, as the personification of the champagne cork popping to celebrate victory.

The presentation was followed by the gathering of the Pan-Caribbean steel orchestra, 600 steel drums and 300 musicians dressed in white, from right around the Caribbean, on the infield.

From the drums came the sweet sound of "Pan In A Minor - the immortal steel band classic by Lord Kitchener.

That was followed by dancing by some 600 people, the winning team doing a victory lap to the sound of steel band music, 24 stiltwalkers doing a dance, and some 500 "party people" who ran onto the ground dressed in white with large silver bandanas and flanked by 100 Bele dancers in beautiful white frilly skirts and tops.

The Bele dance is a French-Caribbean dance form which has become a distinct part of Caribbean cultural performances while the mainly white dress, according to Minshall, was symbolic of cricket and the traditional gear of the game.