Antigua will christen its brand new Sir Vivian Richards Stadium during the Super Eights stage of the Cricket World Cup 2007. Undoubtedly, fans will marvel at the grandeur of the venue. However, as with most preparations for the tournament, the primary infrastructures are in place, but Antiguan officials still have quite a bit of work to do before the Super Eight matches bowl off on March 27.
The stadium, funded primarily by the Chinese government, offers two state of the art electronic scoreboards, seating areas with pool access and an underground tunnel leading directly to practice areas. Given the heavy Chinese influence, most of the stadium features Chinese writing and directions.
The plates that appear on each step indicating seating numbers feature both English and Chinese writing.
The Sir Vivian Richards Stadium offers players the opportunity to walk through an underground tunnel from the lockerroom to an outdoor tower leading to the practice pitches without having to walk through crowds of fans.
Much like Sabina Park, the new venue will offer fans grassed seating with pool amenities. The stadium also boasts two electronic scoreboards with video replay capability.
A closer look at the stadium shows that while the extremities appear to be ready, there is significant detailing work that needs to be completed. The press room, as of Thursday, March 15, was fully furnished but sported only a spattering of monitors and was yet to be wired.
Additionally, the facilities by the pool were still under construction. Conceivably these most likely will be completed in time for March 27th.
However, the major concern has to be the landscaping surrounding the ground. Outside the stadium is a vast expanse of dirt apparently awaiting trees and grass. With less than two weeks until its first match, one would think that the overall appearance of the ground would be of utmost importance to organizers. For the sake of the island and the Caribbean, one can only hope that enough can be done in the short period of time to make the surroundings more appealing to fans.
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Tue, 20/03/2007 - 10:38am
This is just like Sabina Park. There was a mad rush to get the stadium ready, including reinstalling some defective seats two or three days before the match. As with this stadium, the surroundings of Sabina lacked lush landscaping as there was a rush to complete road/sidewalk construction beside Sabina. They however did get some palms into the ground outside Sabina and by the looks of them, they didn't do too well with the last minute planting. However, Sabina came off well and was ready for the matches. I have no doubt that this stadium will be ready too - we just have a bad habit of doing things at the very last minute here in the Caribbean.
Tue, 27/03/2007 - 2:40am
Could someone e-mail me the very latest pictures of the
Sir Vivian Richards Stadium? My ID is -
preethcrasta@gmail.com
Many Thanks,
PC
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