Tony Becca
The regional first-class cricket tournament which gets under way next week will not, as expected, see any of the games being played at the new multi-purpose stadium in Trelawny, nor, also as expected, will it see any being played at Sabina Park.
Earlier this year, the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA), the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and all those involved with the new stadium and the cricket World Cup scheduled to start in March, said, for all to hear, that a match or two during the tournament would have been played at the new stadium in order to test the pitch.
Although it seemed unfair to use a first-class match, a competitive match, to test a pitch, in the circumstances it appeared reasonable.
Promises
That no matches will be there comes, therefore, as a surprise - not because, according JCA Vice-President Paul Campbell, they do not want to stop work at Sabina Park, not because, again according to Campbell, the sewerage system at the new stadium is not ready, but because of all the promises from all concerned that everything would have been ready by then and, up to recently, all the assurances that work at both venues was on schedule.
As far as Sabina Park is concerned, however, work or no work, it is almost a safe bet that, like the two previous years, like the 2005 and 2006 competitions, no matches would have been played there.
In those two years, nine matches, six in 2005 and three in 2006, were played in Jamaica and with the matches scattered around the island at Kensington Park, at Alpart, at Chedwin Park, at Kaiser and at Jarrett Park, not one was played at Sabina Park - the headquarters of cricket in Jamaica.
And remembering that it has happened before - that regional first-class matches have been scheduled at venues in Jamaica, including Sabina Park, by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), and that the venues have been changed later following requests by the JCA, the fact that for the first time in two seasons' matches, against Barbados and against Trinidad and Tobago, were scheduled for Sabina Park, does not mean that they would have been played at Sabina Park.
One reason for that, as the eloquent Robert Bryan, executive officer of the local LOC, informed the gathering at the Portmore Metropolitan Cricket League's presentation dinner on Wednesday night, is that although everything is ready for cricket at both venues, there is no need to play matches there.
According to Bryan, the ICC, the suddenly all-powerful International Cricket Council (ICC), has advised the authorities that no testing is necessary and to do nothing more there but maintain the pitches.
Maybe Sabina Park is not really ready for cricket, and maybe the ICC did advise, or rather, did tell the local authorities that no matches should be played there.
Based on the excuses given for not playing first-class cricket at the best venue for cricket in Jamaica over the past two years, however, there are two reasons why there will be no first-class cricket at Sabina Park this season.
The first reason is that the attendance for first-class cricket at Sabina Park is so poor and the cost of opening up Sabina Park is such that it simply does not make sense to play first-class matches there.
The second reason is that although the attendance in rural Jamaica is not all that better, if it is any better, because of the size of the grounds in rural Jamaica compared to the larger Sabina Park, it looks better, the sponsors usually feel better, because of that the sponsors usually request that the matches be played outside of Kingston and, particularly so, away from Sabina Park and at smaller grounds like Kensington Park and Chedwin Park, and because of that the JCA, in its attempt to cut costs and to please the sponsors, usually agrees.
Contrary to what some may believe, this will not be the first time in many moons that Sabina Park will not host a regional first-class match, and on top of that, although work is still going on at Sabina Park, based on what has happened in the past, Cricket World Cup 2007 has nothing at all to do with it.
