By Neto Baptiste
On the eve of Antigua and Barbuda’s hosting of matches in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, the facilities manager at the North Sound venue, Keithroy Black, said prep work is all but complete.
Speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, Black said his only area of concern is whether or not the facility will be fully painted for Sunday’s opener between Oman and Scotland, but added that all key areas for the staging of the match at the venue are in place.
“That was one of my major concerns, in terms of the facelift o the outer areas of the stadium. I can tell you that it wouldn’t be completed but, however, a lot of painting is being done on the outer area as well and when you get there on Sunday, I hope you will be impressed with the work we have been doing,” he said.
Antigua and Barbuda will host eight matches with four being Group B clashes and four Super 8 fixtures.
Black said new replay and scoreboard screens have been installed and tested while there have been significant upgrades to other areas at the facility.
“National Housing would have done a lot of work that we would have asked them to do for us and just how much money they would have been given by the government, so I can’t put a figure to that. The scoreboards are up and running 100 percent and they have done some testing before and more will be done,” he said.
“We have additional plumbers that will be on the ground here with us on all match days and we have our cleaners as well, so they will be going back and forth to monitor and make sure everything is okay with the bathrooms and that’s all we can do. We have made a lot of changes and changed a lot of fixtures in terms of the pipes and so on. Some of them were taken out of the walls because that’s where some of the major concerns were,” Black added.
The manager also addressed reports that the International Cricket Council (ICC), had asked that posters of National Hero and former West Indies captain, Sir Vivian Richards which adorn the entrance doors at the facility be either removed or covered.
“From the very onset, that has been a no-no for me and we have been back and forth with it but that is something that would not have happened. We were firm that if they wanted to brand any areas that they would brand the frames and around the grass area but as it related to the removal of the icons [off the door] and also the stadium brand from the glass door, that’s a no-no so we’ve been back and forth but at the end of the day, we are moving forward,” he said.
Sunday’s opener is set to bowl off at 1 pm. Two days later, on June 11, the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium will play hosts to Australia and Namibia starting at 8:30 pm while England face Oman on June 13 starting at 3 pm and Namibia play England on June 15 at 1 pm.
The four Super 8 matches will be contested on June 19, 20, 23 and 24.