By Neto Baptiste
President of the Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association (ABCA), Leon Rodney, although agreeing that international cricket would probably never return to the Antigua Recreation Grounds (ARG), believes that some matches and/or cricket activities could be hosted at the venue made popular by cricket.
“I never thought that cricket should have stopped playing at the ARG and when I say cricket, not international cricket, obviously, but the historic value and the nature of that grounds, you still have a lot of people who come from all over the world but they know about cricket so they still go to the ARG to have a peek because it is very historic. Viv made the fastest century there and so I think that would have been a good place for visiting teams, especially school teams coming out of England and so forth. I think it would have been a good place to play cricket and maybe even tournament matches,” he said.
Speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, Rodney said that someone with knowledge of the association’s historical input into the development of the facility should be consulted where it regards the way forward.
“I wouldn’t say the cricket association should; I would say the knowledgeable people of cricket should but it doesn’t really directly have to be somebody from the present executive but somebody who would have been involved. The main pavilion inside the ARG was built by the Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association. I believe that my good friend Clarvis Joseph, before he passed, would have given you a serious interview on that, so I would say yes, some cricket knowledge should be a part of it,” he said.
The debate over the sport’s use of the ARG was reignited two weeks ago when president of the Jennings Cricket Club, Glen Miller, called for a return of local matches to the venue.