Heavy equipment and debris from staging Monday’s gospel concert at Kensington Oval have created a major challenge in preparing the ground for next week’s Professional Cricket League’s Regional Super50 Cup.
Director of cricket at the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA), Steven Leslie, says it is going to be tough getting the famous facility in pristine condition for the Super50 tournament, which starts here on Tuesday with defending champions Barbados Pride clashing with Trinidad and Tobago Red Force.
“The bank holiday event (The Errol Barrow Sunset Concert), which brought out thousands of people, a very popular gospel concert, would have impacted on our preparations. There is another event on January 28 (Sunday). So within 48 hours of that activity, we are being asked to stage a regional tournament,” Leslie said.
“We are working overtime to do our best to ensure that we have got acceptable conditions for that opening match on January 30 (Tuesday). We had issues with plastic cups, chicken bones, people with heels. There are some areas on the outfield that we have to give urgent attention following that event on the bank holiday,” he said.
Leslie said that areas of the outfield were affected by the use of heavy chairs.
“The pitch was cordoned off but there were plenty of areas that were left to the elements. People dancing and people with chairs, and the type of chairs used resulting in indentation. There is also a lot of heavy equipment at these events,” he said.
Leslie told NATIONSPORT, that the time had come for dialogue between stakeholders – the BCA, Kensington Oval Management Inc, (KOMI) and Government – to come up with “a more practical plan to ensure that cricket and any other event that is hosted at Kensington Oval does not impact on the other in any negative way”.
“Cricket and other events should be able to co-exist in a more amicable manner. There must be some collaboration in future between BCA, KOMI and Government to make things smoother,” he asserted.
Leslie gave the assurance that everything would be done to have the ground ready.
“When you have hundreds of people congregating at a venue, as was done on the bank holiday, then the short window after the next event on January 28, it will be very challenging to the experts at Kensington Oval.
“It is a short turnover time and, basically, we have to work around Z the clock to ensure that the conditions are safe and favourable for all parties concerned.
“We will do what we can between the periods that are provided to us. We have a work plan that thus far we are able to execute, but clearly it is a very challenging position that we are placed in when there is very little turnover time between these events,” he said.
Leslie said that those entrusted with regrading the ground would be kept quite busy at Kensington Oval as Tuesday’s match will be the first of ten nights of limited-overs cricket between January 30 and February 17.
“There will be cricket every other night so we are talking plenty of traffic. That means the preparation we require would have been better suited if we did not have the two (non-cricket) events.” (MK)
