West Indies could miss out on having a Test at Lord’s when they tour England in the summer of 2012. A combination of the Olympic Games archery competition, and financial procedure could see the Caribbean side forced to play matches at other venues in England. “The Olympics is the Olympics,” said Keith Bradshaw, chief executive of the Marylebone Cricket Club, which owns the ground. “Everyone understands that, and if cricket is moved aside for a period of time while the Olympics are on, we all accept that and will work around it.
“It’s business as usual, with the bonus of having London 2012 coming to Lord’s.” The opportunity of staging the Test, along with Nottingham and Birmingham, has been offered by the England & Wales Cricket Board instead to the SWALEC Stadium in Cardiff, a comparatively new international venue in a principality in which cricket is not established as a major sport. The omission of a match at “Headquarters”—where they took such pride in the historic victory of 1950—will hit West Indians living in Britain particularly hard. Nor will they have a Test at The Oval, which for many years, was considered to be a “home” fixture because of the large attendance drawn from the large Caribbean.
It is understood that with the Olympic Games in London dominating the summer sporting schedule, and two of the six Tests being also staged in the city, the ECB wants to give the outer regions a share of the other major events. The London 2012 organising committee (Locogo) and the MCC have unveiled plans for transforming Lord’s, the “home of cricket”, into a temporary archery venue for the Olympics. It will be subject to a small-scale test event being held there in October 2011. The ground will be out of use for cricketing purposes for a month during July and the start of August 2012 causing the prestigious “set-piece” Test against South Africa to be held considerably later than usual in the season. (CMC)
