Trinidad: Cricket centre starts October (8 Sep 1998)

8 September 1998

Cricket centre starts October

By Garth Wattley

A dream three years old is finally about to come to fruition for the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board.

For next month, construction work is expected to start on the National Cricket Centre.

"This week we will be talking to engineers and architects with a view to put the contract out to tender by the end of the month," TTCB CEO Alloy Lequay told the Express yesterday.

That the authorities are now actually near the point of construction is good news for the Board.

Plans for the cricket centre and a cricket academy were drawn up in 1995. But it took the TTCB some three years to get approval from the Town and Country Planning for the 17-and-a-half acres at Balmain, Couva acquired from Caroni 1975 Limited.

And speaking about the project yesterday, Lequay, who last month vacated his place on the West Indies Cricket Board to concentrate, he says, on the cricket centre, noted that the new ground will not be a rival to the Oval.

"Our present attitude is not to duplicate a facility like the Queen's Park Oval for ten days of international cricket a year," Lequay told the Express.

However, the TTCB president is not ruling out big cricket for the facility.

"At a later stage there will be regional cricket," Lequay says, "in a maximum of five years."

Asked about the possibility of Test cricket at the centre, Lequay's response was: "I would never say never but that is not our focus right now."

And, he adds, the "immediate focus" is on developing the training facilities of the centre "so that all our national teams will be able to come into camp and have organised training sessions, both indoor and outdoor".

The cricket centre is to be constructed in three phases, the first of which-the construction of an administrative headquarters-is expected to cost $1.2 million.

In total, the centre will be equipped with an academy, indoor nets, dormitory facilities, a physiotherapy room, a small gym, offices for a manager and coach, outdoor nets and a full-sized cricket field.

And over the first three years, the operational costs of the academy are expected to be borne by electricity generating company, Powergen. "One will not see the immediate benefits," Lequay concedes, "but down the road I am certain we will."

On the question of the West Indies A team selected to tour India, Lequay was less forthcoming.

Two Trinidad and Tobago players have been included in the 15-man squad, Ian Bishop, the captain, and middle-order batsman Richard Smith whose selection has come in for criticism from regional journalists.

"One needs to admit that Richard has not been a consistent performer," says Lequay.

"But certainly with his performances in the 1998 season he showed he could lift his cricket to a higher level. I am assuming that it is on that judgment that the selectors included him, given the fact there are not too many middleorder batsmen of high calibre."

Asked about the non-selection of opener Suruj Ragoonath who was on last year's "A" team tour to South Africa, Lequay was even more non-committal.

"I expect he is disappointed given the calibre of players at this point in time. But Ragoonath had his opportunities but he has not shown the consistency that we would have expected."

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)