Sabina Park Ready for World Cup Cricket

With less than 20 days before the start of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007, the Jamaica Local Organizing Committee (LOC) has said that Sabina Park was in a state of readiness to host matches.
Executive Director of the Jamaica LOC, Robert Bryan, addressing a recent press conference at his Oxford Road office, said that work on the temporary structures at Sabina Park was approximately 90 per cent complete.
These temporary facilities include tents, generators and additional power requirements to support the tournament; seating overlays, additional bathroom facilities, turnstiles, ticketing and entry point equipment, among other things.
“These services are provided by our overlay contractor, which is essentially the overlay contractor for the entire region, which is a company by the name of G L Events,” he said. “We expect over the next couple of days for our overlay contractors to be establishing the turnstile facilities,” he added.
In terms of the pitches, Mr. Bryan informed that, “we can now report that the pitches have been laid and are now ready. The bowler’s run up, which up to the end of January, we were still running late, have now been grassed and prepared and we are now consolidating.” He said that regular maintenance of the pitches would continue.
As for the party stand, popularly know as the ‘Mound’, Mr. Bryan assured that all the necessary work would be completed by tomorrow (Feb. 26). “We still have grassing to do on the mound. The central landscaping and contouring work have been completed and we expect to address the grassing by the application of sod,” he informed.
Turning to the north stand, he indicated that most of the infrastructure elements have been put in place. Mr. Bryan informed that work on the seating was held up by a late shipment of material from a supplier but “we have confirmation that that container is in the ports of Miami and we expect it to make the ship and be in the country on Monday”.
“Once we get that cleared, which we have made the preparations, we should be able to complete the final installation of seats within a day or two in respect to the north stand,” the Executive Director stated.
There is also good news for the media, broadcasters and corporate sponsors as facilities to accommodate them are in place. The media facilities in particular, while completed, require minor adjustments. “The information technology infrastructure is very much on target and I think we could say that we are in the 90 per cent region in terms of completion of that,” Mr. Bryan said.
Under the Yellow Package, Jamaica will host four warm up matches, which will be held at the newly constructed Trelawny Multi-purpose stadium from March 5 to 9. The opening ceremony, scheduled for March 11, will also be held at that venue.
Jamaica will also host six first-round matches, including the opening match of the tournament at Sabina Park on March 13, which will pit the West Indies against Pakistan. In addition, Jamaica will host a semi-final match on April 24.