Sir Viv miffed by abandonment

… ‘This shoots me straight through the heart’
NORTH SOUND, Antigua (CMC) – His name stands as a testament for excellence and greatness in the game.
So the shambolic set of circumstances that led to the abandonment of the second Test between West Indies and England yesterday at the Vivian Richards Cricket Ground has left the man himself miffed.

The VRCG outfield has been a source of major disappointment for the Antigua & Barbuda authorities, and major embarrassment for West Indies cricket officials in the three years of its existence.

But none has felt the hurt more than Sir Viv, whose name proudly adorns a ground that has become a target of ill will, following its construction ahead of the 2007 World Cup.

“This shoots me straight through the heart,” Sir Viv exclaimed on BBC Radio, where he is part of the Test Match Special commentary team covering the match. “This is not shooting me in the foot. This is shooting me straight through the heart.”

Each year, the Government of Antigua & Barbuda has promised to rectify the problems with the turf, and each year, WICB officials have turned up, holding their breath, wondering what they could expect.

On the eve of the match, they discovered a literal sand dune which led some of the visiting British journalists to unsympathetically suggest that Antigua & Barbuda had found its 366th beach – an exaggeration of the marketing slogan which promotes the two-island state as having a beach for each day of the year.

Following corrections to the drainage problem that has dogged the venue, it led ground authorities to tear up the outfield late last year and relay the surface with a thick layer of sand.

But the grass which was planted to help it to bind has not germinated sufficiently leaving some patches of the outfield thin and bare.

The situation at the VRCG has not been helped by the Antigua & Barbuda Cricket Association’s refusal to host a regional first-class match between Leeward Islands and Barbados almost a month ago which would have allowed the WICB to verify the integrity of the ground prior to the series.

“Let me apologise to everyone on behalf of the WICB for what can only be described as an embarrassment,” he said.

Knowing Sir Viv, he would not be impressed.

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