Lights Out at Warner Park as WI v Bangladesh match Abandoned
The weather was not kind to the WI v Bangladesh T20 match held last night in St.Kitts. After just 5 overs the game had to be halted after the passage of heavy rains and a stadium wide blackout.
According to BleacherReport.com “Rain and power issues forced the abandonment of the one-off Twenty20 International between West Indies and Bangladesh in St. Kitts.
A torrential downpour and unreliable floodlights forced the umpires to call the game off after just 4.4 overs had been bowled and the players had been off for over two hours in a delay.”
During the delay the recently installed US$4MILLION Lights blacked out unexpectedly. A situation which sent local engineers and officials scrabbling to find what was the issue. In an interview with the local media Senior Sports Officer Vernon Springer indicated that local engineers were working on the issue but stated that engineers from the Manufacturers and the company that installed the lights had been contacted and would be on island by Saturday.
The installation of the Lights and a massive jumbotron drew much criticism as many saw the expense as unnecessary especially in a small economy such as St.Kitts-Nevis where citizens complain daily on local talk shows about the extremely high cost of living and less than adequate healthcare. .Only 4 Cricket Grounds in the world boosts the Jumbotron like the one in Warner Park, St.Kitts . The others located in England, Australia and India. Opposition Politicians have declared that there were much more urgent issues that needed to be addressed such as healthcare , education and the high rate of poverty than the installation of a multi-million dollar Jumbot-Tron and lighting system.
It is speculated that St.Kitts out-bid Trinidad and Tobago to get the rights to the finals of the CPL . Trinidad and Tobago bid US$1.5 million. Grenada bid US$500,000 for 3 prelim matches. Both governments made their figures known to the public. However the Minister of Sports Glenn Phillip in a news conference stated that he was not at liberty to give the amount that St.Kitts bid to get ther rights to host the finals because of what he stated as a confidentiality agreement that the government signed with the organizers which prohibited them from releasing that information within the next 12 months.
The Finals saw thousands pack the Warner Park stadium which is built to seat 8000 and one of the smaller test grounds in the World.
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