Beausejour Sets High Standards
Sun, Jun 29, '03
Presently celebrating 75 years of Test cricket, a celebration, by the way, that has been, disappointingly, as lackluster as a damp squib, the West Indies opposed Sri Lanka in the 1st of a two-Test series, at the new Beausejour Stadium, situated in the Windward Island of St. Lucia, and adjacent to the world famous yachting port of Rodney Bay. This venue became the 8th Test venue in the Caribbean, and the 88th around the world.
Not surprisingly, and with the emphasis on the 2007 Cricket World Cup, the Beausejour Stadium is the 3rd to have been commissioned to Test cricket in the Caribbean over the last 10 years, following the Arnos Vale Stadium in St. Vincent and the Queens Park Stadium, in Grenada, both also Windward Islands, while Antigua & Barbuda commissioned the Antigua Recreation Ground (ARG) in 1981, perhaps suggesting that the emphasis of West Indies cricket may be shifting from the traditional venues.
It should also be further noted that St. Lucia has not yet produced an International cricketer. These people are very progressive indeed.
Certainly the Queens Park Oval in Trinidad & Tobago, Bourda in Guyana, the Kensington Oval in Barbados, and Sabina Park, in Jamaica, all of which are now going through some sort of renovation, either planned or actual, will have to change drastically to measure up to these new stadiums sprouting everywhere.
With a population of just about 7 millions people, the Caribbean has done well, since England has also only just commissioned its own 8th Test venue, the first new cricket stadium in England in over 100 years, when England opposed Zimbabwe recently at the Riverside Stadium in Chester-le-Street, the home of Durham Cricket Club, in north-east England, near to Gateshead, the home of British athletics, and the Newcastle Football Club.
Let us say one thing straight-away. The Beausejour Stadium, with a present capacity of about 14,000, is easily the best appointed cricket stadium of the Caribbean at this time, and with expansion scheduled to more than double its present capacity by 2007, the final figure suggested being 32,000, the very picturesque island of St. Lucia now has something further to boast about, to go with its world-renowned Jazz Festival.
The outfield is shorn to about a quarter inch of the type of grass that is usually used on golf courses, the grass supposedly being a hybrid of the Savannah and Bermuda grass families. The under-soil comes from Guyana, which, as suggested by the experts, has the correct porosity and aeration standards, hence the phenomenal drying qualities of the ground. I can tell you that if the amount of rain that fell in St. Lucia between the 3rd and 4th days of the 1st Test against Sri Lanka had fallen anywhere else in the Caribbean, that venue would not have been available for at least a month. Cricket could actually have been played there on the 4th afternoon, had the light been better.
What should be more of pleasure, I guess, is that the company that put down the outfield at the Beausejour Stadium, Terra-Firma Limited, is Trinidadian, while the main soil engineers, Messrs Kempadoo and Jose, are Guyanese and Venezualan, respectively. Talk about Caribbean, now that is fully regional co-operation.
Obviously, there has been great excitement about this stadium and its appointments. There really should not have been since in my several years of covering cricket all around the world, I have always suggested that the cricket grounds in the region are so lacking in amenities that it is no longer funny. After all, if you are the press corps, unless you bring your own curry and roti, or even fruit, or something else to eat at Bourda, in Guyana, or the Queens Park Oval, in Trinidad & Tobago, or ?beg? for lunch at one of the several corporate enclosures, you are guaranteed to starve for that day.
Indeed, there are cricket stadiums in the Caribbean, in the year 2003, where it is very difficult to have potable water to drink or a toilet to use. Things are that bad, folks. All that has happened at the Beausejour Staium is that the cricket fraternity in St. Lucia has taken the bull by the horns and brought in a stadium for the 21st century. If anyone ever has the good fortune to travel to Australia or South Africa to see their stadiums, one would understand exactly what I am talking about.
The Beausejour Stadium has the best press facilities in the Caribbean. Even Brian Lara had to exclaim when he saw the players? enclosure. ?Tremendous improvement does not say enough,? suggested the captain, ?when one considers the rest of our cricket grounds. It is like chalk and cheese.? To a man, the Sri Lankans and the Australians concurred.
All we can now hope and ask for, actually demand, is that the rest of the Caribbean?s cricket facilities come up to at least the standards set by the Beausejour Stadium in St. Lucia. They should actually try to surpass that standard, since they would be newer.