ICC happy with Eden progress
International Cricket Council (ICC) inspection team is happy about the progress of work on the stadium at the Eden Gardens, one of the venues of the World Cup matches in Feb-March.
President of Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) Jagmohan Dalmiya, who was also a former president of ICC, told reporters after the ICC inspection: “It appears to me that members of the ICC inspection team are happy with the progress of the work. The ICC team will now send their report to ICC about their findings.?
The five-member ICC team which included World Cup tournament director Ratnakar Shetty, Indian Cricket Board representative Suru Naik, ICC General Manager-Commecial Campbell Janieson, ICC stadium consultant Eugene Van Vurren and ICC Event Manager Chris Tetley arrived in the city this morning.
They inspected the progress of the work and various other facilities in the stadium and had discussion with CAB officials for about five hours from 11 a.m.
The visiting ICC team did not interact with media and left as soon as they finished their inspection and discussion.
Dalmiya said, ?There is no deadline for us to complete the work within any particular time.”
“We have to make the stadium ready before Feb 27 ,” he said.
Eden Gardens will host the first of the four World Cup matches on Feb 27 between India and England. The other matches would be held on March 15 ( South Africa vs Ireland ), March 18 (Ireland vs
Netherland) and on March 18 ( Kenya vs Zimbabwe).
Dalmiya said: ?Organising world cup matches is nothing new to us. We have earlier hosted matches whenever India organized world cup including final of 1987 world cup beside matches of other international events like Hero Cup and Prudential Cup?.
?Work on the stadium is an ongoing process and there is no deadline. The stadium would be ready to host the matches within the scheduled,? Dalmiya said.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal government exempted CAB from the 20 percent entertainment tax they imposed earlier on World Cup match tickets, Dalmiya informed.