NZC springs into action
New Zealand Cricket could wave goodbye to expensive Eden Park as soon as 2021, if the proposed new home of international cricket in Auckland is up and running at Western Springs.
Having presented a damning assessment of Eden Park in NZC’s submission to the Auckland Council as part of Regional Facilities Auckland’s Venue Development Strategy, chief executive David White backed Western Springs and said it could be ready to host the next ICC Women’s World Cup in 2021.
‘‘We’re told it could be up and running by then which would be a fantastic outcome,’’ White told Stuff.
White said the RFA proposal being backed by NZC would see a new rectangular stadium with a roof built at either Eden Park or another city location, which would mean a new home for international cricket.
Under the proposal, the current home of speedway in Auckland was the preferred option for all international cricket, including floodlights and state of the art training facilities. NZC could move its headquarters there, too.
‘‘They’ve come up with a proposal to have a ground at Western Springs, capacity 20,000, although that could be scaled up or scaled down. A big oval, grass embankment and a natural amphitheatre which is appealing, and we think that’s a good solution for the city and for cricket.’’ White said.
Eden Park hosted the country’s first day-night test against England in March, and drew a crowd of 33,692 for the February Twenty20 international against Australia.
The country’s biggest stadium with an excellent drop-in pitch has a knack of staging thrilling cricket matches but the prohibitive hire cost was a big turnoff, particularly when hosting teams other than crowd-pullers Australia, England or India.
‘‘We’ve had some fantastic fixtures at Eden Park but it’s a very large stadium and it does cost money to open it. You can’t run games at a loss.
‘‘The security, cleaning, traffic management plan, makes it a challenge for us to play test matches and smaller international fixtures there. That’s the reality. Therefore we haven’t played as much test cricket as we would have liked in our biggest populated area.’’
It means Eden Park may well have hosted its last test match. White has ruled out it hosting one of the five scheduled tests this season against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. India are scheduled to play five ODIs and three T20 internationals in New Zealand early next year and White said Eden Park remained a very important venue for some of those matches.
NZC’s submission said a more ‘‘cricket-centric’’ Western Springs Stadium could become the country’s leading international cricket venue and high performance base. Waikato Police have recovered Kiwi boxer David Nyika’s stolen Commonwealth Games gold medal.
Nyika, who won gold on the Gold Coast in April to back up his triumph in Glasgow in 2014, had his latest medal stolen from his car at the start of the month.
In searching for the medal, police released CCTV footage of a number of people in a shopping complex in Onehunga, Auckland.
Yesterday, police said they had identified the persons of interest and had recovered the medal.
Nyika won heavyweight gold at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April, defeating Australian Jason Whateley in dominant fashion.
Back in New Zealand, and the medal had been taken from Nyika’s car.
‘‘At first I was quite embarrassed about it, but now I’m just angry,’’ the 22-year-old said last week.
‘‘A kid dressed up as his hero, which happened to be me, for a mufti day at school so I thought I’d surprise him and stop by with my medal. That’s when I realised it was gone. I didn’t notice until then.’’
But yesterday morning, Waikato Police posted the good news on Facebook.