More centuries than your average ground

Dambulla: under lights for the first time © Getty Images

Set deep in the interior of the island, and far enough north to avoid the full impact of Sri Lanka's double monsoon, the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium is located in a cultural and climatic hotspot. At the peak of Sinhalese civilisation in the fifth century AD, the region was known as Rajarata - the land of kings - and though the lustre has faded, the legacy lives on. Ambitious projects have been, and always will be, the watchword.

Silhouetted like a miniature Table Mountain, and looming over the palm trees on the eastern horizon, is the mighty fifth-century rock palace of Sigiriya, one of Sri Lanka's most spectacular attractions. Guarding the entrance to Dambulla's fabulous cave temples, which date from the 1st Century BC, is a slightly garish, but decidedly grandiose, 100ft-high statue of Buddha - which dates from the 20th Century AD and is reputedly the largest in the world. The ancient city of Polonnaruwa, half-an-hour to the east, was once supported by a 2500-hectare water tank, so large that it was named the Sea of Parakrama in honour of its creator.

Clearly, Dambulla's stadium is in exalted company, and there is no doubt that it intends to live up to the majesty of the region. A state-of-the-art five-storey grandstand boomerangs its way around the western side of the ground, while the main road is guarded by eight lanes of toll-booths, that presage the sort of tarmac construction that Judge Doom had in mind in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. At the moment however, they lead nowhere more dramatic than several large and clay-scarred fields, where the signposts already point towards "Carparks A, B, C, D, E, and F".

That particular problem is not limited to the parking - the ground is as lopsided as it is ambitious. A mock-Adelaide scoreboard does its best to counterbalance the grandstand, but its impact is currently lessened by a low and incomplete ring of seats and mud, where workmen were busy right up until the very morning of the game. Even the billboards seem a little confused - one giant hoarding is completely blank, apart from the top corner, where an enigmatic statement reads: "We are proud to be" ... incomplete?

In 1989, another man with a penchant for outlandish projects - Kevin Costner - starred in the film Field of Dreams. It was the story of an idealistic farmer who built a baseball diamond in his cornfield, on the premise that "If he builds it, they will come".

The sentiments behind this ground are probably not far removed - Dambulla may be the hub of an ancient civilisation, but the current town rivals Lake Woebegon for one-horsemanship. Perhaps unsurprisingly, development seems to have been put on perpetual hold since England (and their mass of supporters) were last here in March 2001.

Then again, what is a few dozen months, when you've got 15 centuries of civilisation to play with?