By Neto Baptiste
Acting Facilities Manager at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Keithroy Black, is confident that ongoing work, which includes the re-laying of pitches at the venue, will be completed well ahead of November’s Academy Tour between West Indies and Ireland.
Black made the assertion even as work progresses at the North Sound venue which is also slated to host two CG United ODIs on 3 and 6 December between England and the West Indies.
“The square has seven pitches and five of them would have already been fully re-laid, fully grassed as well. The other two were fully grassed as well but there wasn’t any need to re-lay those fully as we did with the others. The guys actually dug up five of them fully and the other two were in really good condition because they did some work of them prior and they are fully grassed but it’s just to put some soil on them. They would have done one [on Monday] and the other one was completed [on Tuesday] so those would be pitch number one and pitch number seven.
“The main focus would be the pitches more central because those are the ones that will be used for the England and the trial matches that will be here later down in November,” he said.
One of the major undertakings, Black said, will be the replacing of screens for the two electronic scoreboards at the venue which he revealed could cost over US $400,000.
“Screens will be purchased for the upcoming World Cup [but] we will be mounting two temporary screens for the England tour because the screen we had that was giving us something had gotten damaged by the lightning we had the other day. We just had approval for purchase so we’re now working on the paperwork. I spoke to the person who won that bid and he is now proceeding in getting things done for us,” he said.
The first CG United ODI is a day game starting at 9:30am with the second CG United ODI starting at 1:30pm as a day/night game.
Black said general work on upgrading the facility continues daily.
“We will be looking at some changes to the locker rooms; the practice pitch will have a new look hopefully for England; [and] the perimeter fence should be changed for the World Cup. We’re trying to get to a certain level for England and then after England the work will continue right after going into January right down,” the manager said.
In September, Chief Executive Officer for Cricket West Indies (CWI), Johnny Grave, revealed that ongoing work at the stadium meant that Antigua and Barbuda will not host matches in the ongoing CG United Men’s Super50 Cup.
