Cricket bosses knock practice facilities (27 April 1999)

27 April 1999

Cricket bosses knock practice facilities

The Barbados Nation

Clive Lloyd and Steve Waugh have both bemoaned the lack of practice facilities for their teams during Australia's tour of the West Indies.

West Indies manager Lloyd and Australia captain Waugh noted there were no nets at four of the venues during the series of seven One-Day internationals - St. Vincent, Grenada, Guyana and Barbados.

The Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad is the only venue in the Caribbean with net pitches within the ground. At the others, teams practise either on the playing area itself or at club grounds elsewhere. There are no indoor facilities anywhere.

"It's something I've said over and over again, that we should make practice facilities paramount," Lloyd stated after Sunday's final match at Kensington Oval.

"I think it's bad and something we have to improve on."

Waugh said his players had turned up at their assigned practice ground, Wanderers, on Friday, to find that it wasn't ready and had been confined to fielding practice at Kensington instead. They also went without net practice in St. Vincent, Grenada and Guyana.

Lloyd explained that the West Indies' practice ground, Queen's Park, was not prepared "because the Under-19s had used it the day before".

"You go to other countries and you can have a decent net, indoors or outdoors, even during a game," he said. "We can't go into a Test match or a One-Day game without practice and we have done so in four of the matches here.

"When we tour overseas, they give us a lot of good stuff, so we should give them the best facilities," Lloyd said.

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)