Bye Neto Baptiste
Facilities Manager at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Keithroy Black, has given assurances that ongoing work at the venue, will be completed ahead of the country’s first scheduled match in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup on June 9.
“Based on the Cricket West Indies and the ICC, there is a minimum standard that all countries have to meet and I am quite sure that all the countries are looking at that and pushing past that as well. So what is required from us here at Sir Viv and the things that are asked of us will be done and will be completed before the first ball is bowled on the 9th of June.”
The North Sound venue will play host to Scotland and Oman on June 9 starting at 1pm before hosting Australia and Namibia two days later on June 11.
Black said a number of major areas of concern have been rectified, including the purchasing and installing of new LED screens.
“The one on the western said that’s down by the Party Stand area is up and the one on the eastern side, the guys would have started that one as well. It takes less than a day to put all of the modules in and that would have been completed Wednesday or Thursday [last week] but they had to make some adjustments in terms of the brackets and so on, so that is now completed as well and the testing of both screens will be done during the course of [this week].”
In addition to ongoing painting on both the inside and outside of the venue, Black revealed they have also been working on providing additional parking for fans.
“There are a lot of parking spaces we would have created on the northern side as well, but because of the [rain] over the last days and the softness on the outside, it sort of set us back a bit but we still have a little time. I can tell you this much, from what we had and where we are now, I believe we would have added another couple hundred parking spaces on the northern side and also on the western side as you are coming form the abattoir and the roundabout areas as well,” he said.
A total of 55 matches will be played between 20 teams in this year’s tournament, which will be played in the West Indies and the USA. The first round will be held across nine cities, making it the largest T20 World Cup in history.
Antigua will host a total of seven matches in the prestigious tournament with four of those matches coming in the group stages and three Super 8 matches held between June 9 and 23 at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
