Johannesburg - When Cricket South Africa announced a R107-million surplus back in September, there was rightly reason for much fanfare.
In a tough economic climate, not helped by shenanigans in the country’s highest office, the organisation had been able to ensure financial stability and in fact strength. Cricket South Africa’s product and its main asset - the Proteas men's team - remains an attractive entity for big companies.
However, there have been grumblings in local circles about how Cricket SA should use those earnings at a time when transformation is very much a topic and with grounds that, for the most part, have not been upgraded since the 2003 World Cup.
Making the “stadium experience” a comfortable one for fans is something that cricket venues in this country find very challenging.
Scoreboards are for the most part archaic - Kingsmead is the only major venue with an LED scoreboard - and given its importance to the fans’ experience, one would have thought that Cricket SA, in conjunction with its provincial affiliates, would look to utilise some of that R107-million in new and modern scoreboards at bigger venues such as the Wanderers, Newlands and SuperSport Park.
Around the world stadia are constantly being either upgraded or rebuilt, at great expense. The Americans do this sort of thing on a grand scale, just surf the internet and look at some of the NFL stadia.
In the UK, premier league club Tottenham Hotspur are in the midst of rebuilding their iconic White Hart Lane, while Chelsea are still looking for a new area to build their own new stadium, with bigger capacity, but most importantly modern facilities, that are comfortable for fans.
From a cricket perspective, Australia is moving ahead very fast. Many of their major cricket venues, including the MCG, SCG and Adelaide Oval, are multi-purpose venues, with modern scoreboards, providing information that a paying customer wants and needs.
The WACA,, where the first Test between Australia and South Africa started this morning, may be an iconic venue for the sport, but from 2018/19 it will no longer host Tests against the major nations, nor will it host limited overs internationals and Big Bash matches.
All of those will be played at the Perth Stadium, a plush modern facility near the WACA capable of seating 60 000 people ... and ja, it will also have two massive big screens, which will act as scoreboards when the stadium hosts cricket and provide high definition slow-mo replays.
So look, given the huge financial costs incurred in building stadia for the 2010 football World Cup, I’m not proposing that we build new cricket stadiums, but just that what we have in the country can do with some sprucing up. Having new, modern scoreboards would be a good place to start.
The Star