National T20 Festival to gauge readiness of Lara Stadium

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Cricket authorities here will use the National Twenty20 Festival to assess the match-readiness of the just completed Brian Lara Cricket Academy.

Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board member, Baldath Mahabir, told media here Wednesday the facility would stage the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final of the tournament starting on Saturday and it was hoped West Indies Cricket Board officials could be present to gauge how the stadium handles the workload throughout the period.

“Our national T20 Festival, which includes the 40 top clubs in our country, will be battling out the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final stages at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy,” Mahabir said.

Brian Lara Cricket Stadium.

“For this event, we will be using and monitoring various aspects of the facility, including the pitches, media centre, lighting, public address system, public access and egress, seating, washrooms, and some concession stands, among others.”

He added: “To this end also, we are seeking to engage the West Indies Cricket Board to visit during the six-day tournament, do an organised walk-through prior to a match being played and also to cast an expert eye on the quality of our stadium during matches, ideally on the night of the final.”

Two quarter-final games will be played each day at 3 pm and 7 pm until Tuesday, with the semi-finals set for May 4 and the final the following day.

The tournament represents the first taste of action for the stadium, named in honour of the Trinidad and West Indies star, arguably the finest batsman of the contemporary era.

With the stadium set to be officially opened on May 12, project engineer Ian Telfer said the games would help to highlight any issues which needed to be addressed.

“This would provide us with the information we would need to put things in place,” he noted.

The stadium was initially supposed to be built in time for the historic 2007 Cricket World Cup but was dogged by cost overruns, scandals and corruption allegations.