It’s not the timeliest bit o’ World Cup mutinousness (oy, I meant to have it up last Wednesday…sorry Anonymous Tipster), but once I realized that a) the cricket stadium I’m about to discuss had already been mentioned on SM almost two years ago, by one of our earliest readers and b) it dealt with Guyana, a part of the diaspora we don’t get a chance to cover all that often, I couldn’t resist blogging it, tardy though I may be. 🙂
Read all about India and Guyana’s construction-lovechild, via this article in the Malaysia Sun:
Inaugurated by Indian Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat during his official visit to Guyana in November last year, Guyana’s new international cricket stadium, which will hold as many as half a dozen matches in the Super Eight stage, has been billed as the stadium of friendship between India and Guyana.
India gave the Guyanese government a grant of $6 million and a concessional line of credit of $19 million for the purpose.
The new facility was built by Mumbai-based firm Shapoorji Pallonji.
It sounds impressive:
The new picturesque Guyana National Stadium is set on the east coast of the majestic Demerara river, which flows into the mighty Atlantic just a few miles away.
The new stadium seats over 10,720 spectators and accommodates another 4,280 on a grassy mound…The wide area around the stadium has seen hotels sprouting up which are expected to boost Guyana’s tourism industry.
Even numismatists get some love 😉
The Bank of Guyana has also issued a special gold coin to mark the opening of the new stadium.
Then there’s the whole China – Taiwan angle to the stadium-building story….
A friend who was in Grenada recently was shown the stadium by his hosts, who told him of the 24/7 round-the-clock work done by the laborers that China had imported from home.
Ah, the optimism of the press release! The Demerara is a wide muddy jungle river, with industrial facilities on its east bank (the Georgetown side) and traversed by a pontoon bridge, like something the Allies would have used to roll tanks across a river in Alsace. There are the rusting hulks of abandoned steamers presenting occasional navigational hazards. It’s all very interesting, but “majestic” doesn’t seem quite the right word.
The Atlantic at the mouth of the Demerara is a muddy wash of rainforest flotsam and jetsam, plus the industrial pollutants churned out by Georgetown industry. You can’t swim in it or gaze longingly into it.
There are cricket clubs with their own stadiums all along the north coast, just up from the Georgetown center, along with public parks, all maintained nicely. The American embassy is there and the city’s only luxury hotel. Families come here to picnic, fly kites, and watch club cricket.
Test matches have been tough in Georgetown because the country gets so much rain (the wicket washes out). That rain was needed to grow rice and sugar, which is why Indians were imported by the British after slavery was abolished in 1834. Northern Guyana is crisscrossed by an elaborate network of irrigation canals, developed by Dutch engineers, for the growing of rice and cane.
Maybe the new India-developed stadium will be better at dealing with all the water. Guyanese feel somewhat left out since big-time cricket matches happen mostly in sunbaked Antigua (where Brian Lara has blasted two quadruple centuries) or in Port of Spain (Lara’s home pitch in Trinidad).
There’s not much reason for a tourist to go to Guyana. Let’s hope cricket opens some doors.
Cricket nerd alert Brian Lara did not get two quadruple centuries in Antigua. He got 375 there in 1994 to break Sir Garry Sobers’ highest-innings score; in 2004 he reached 400 to reclaim the record from Matthew Hayden. Nerdiness over
Aside from that, Preston, your clear-eyed picture of Guyana actually made me want to see it even more.
Thanks for the clarification–one triple and one quadruple. His quadruple was Easter weekend in 2004. I watched it on TV at the Hotel Tower in Georgetown (not luxury), with Carib beer brought from room service, while I waited for the rain to let up.
The new Providence Stadium, I hear, is much better at dealing with the water than is Bourda (the Fenway park of West Indies cricket, if you will). Providence Stadium drains away 2 inches of rainfall every 30 minutes.
Guyana’s beauty lies, not in coastal Georgetown and its Dutch colonial architecure mixed with modern eye sore buildings, but in it’s interior. Amazing waterfalls are scattered throughout a lush untouched rainforest, all topped by the amazing Kaieteur Falls – if you haven’t seen it in person, you are missing a truly spiritual experience – one like no other.
10,720 spectators? Sounds like a minor league baseball stadium.
Guyana’s close relations with India go way back to the birth of Guyana itself when Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the elected Prime Minister of British Guiana, deposed by a British and CIA conspiracy, visited Prime Minister Nehru in India and received his support. Indeed, Jagan would later become close friends with Indira Gandhi, and described her as close to his heart as a sister.
Jagan himself was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, and in his is fight for democracy in Guyana, was guided by Gandhi’s principles of non-violent change.
More about all this can be found here: http://www.guyana.org/govt/leaders_india1953.html
“There’s not much reason for a tourist to go to Guyana. Let’s hope cricket opens some doors.”
uh oh. i hope no guyanese read that, lest you get the bbc’s martin gough treatment here and here.
the funny thing about the new stadium in grenada is that during its formal opening ceremony, the grenadians mistakenly played the anthem of taiwan, who preceded china in the caribbean in buying the loyalty (and u.n vote on taiwan-china disputes) of local governments. would have loved to have seen the chinese official’s face.
10,720 spectators? Sounds like a minor league baseball stadium.
Most staidims outside of the subcontinet and australia have capacities of 15000 to 20K max. Its Guyana at the end of the day they are not going to have a 90K MCG or 110K eden gardens
It would be nice if more people would visit Guyana. With a population of only 750,000, there are now more Guyanese outside of Guyana than in it. But the country’s infrastructure is poor, crime is high (especially in Georgetown), and it’s not really a bargain to travel there. Maybe the new stadium will spark further development.
Jgtpjgtpjgtp
omg i dont get this stuff…….. R U guys saying dat india and guyana versed each other in sum kinda cricket game….. and sumthin”’ happenneddddd………….LOL….what up ma peeps……….lol