The Eisenhower Park in New York, the venue for the marquee clash between India and Pakistan (scheduled for June 9), will be ready in three months and will not host any international matches in the lead-up to the 2024 T20 World Cup, starting on June 3 in the Caribbean and the USA. However, on Wednesday, the ICC confirmed the venue will host several warm-up matches before hosting the tournament opener between Sri Lanka and South Africa.
Located 25 miles east of New York City Nassau County (Long Island), Eisenhower Park is among the three venues shortlisted by the ICC in the USA, along with Grand Prairie (Texas) and Broward County (Lauderhill, Florida), which will host a total of 16 group stage matches, including three India games.
Although this venue has never hosted an international cricket game, the ICC’s head of events, Chris Tetley, doesn’t seem to be bothered much. Per the released ICC statement, the testing phase at the said venue will begin on May 13, including hosting practice matches, giving the organisers a fair idea about how the wicket at the first modular stadium in cricket fares.
There will be warm-up matches played at the facility (New York) so that we know from a cricket perspective how the venue runs, Tetley said. Also, importantly, we will know from an operational perspective how all of the functional teams that will come together to run the stadium need to interact on an event day with people coming through the turnstiles, he added.
Populous - a globally renowned architecture and design firm, has been hired to construct the stadium which will have a seating capacity of 34,000. With trusted hands involved, Tetley provided ‘reassurance’ to the governing body, saying there would not be anything to worry about even in case of a last-minute hiccup.
Alongside this, Damian Hough-headed Adelaide Oval Turf Solutions is preparing a set of drop-in pitches and LankTek Group – a USA-based turf-making business, which is known to be preparing fields for the New York Yankees, New York Mets, and Inter Miami CF, has been hired to manufacture the outfield.
In addition to testing events that give us a lot of reassurance is the quality of the people involved and the quality of the work that they do day in, day out: from Damian (Hough) on the pitches and the number of pitches he's building, which gives us a bit of flex in case one of the pitches doesn't go as well as we want, we can shift around so that we're not reliant on you know, a no latency solution there.
LandTek are working hand in glove with Damian on all of the agronomy aspects of the facility. From a cricket perspective, they are the ones that we are most keenly interested in ensuring over the right quality because that's fundamental, he added.
Penna shared a video and a few images of the stadium. He wrote, Under construction? They haven't even broken ground yet, and won't until February. This is what the Nassau County, NY cricket stadium site for the 2024 T20 World Cup currently looks like.
Under construction? They haven't even broken ground yet, and won't until February. This is what the Nassau County, NY cricket stadium site for the 2024 T20 World Cup currently looks like. https://t.co/0jiG5rs1GR pic.twitter.com/A8yGh0dT2A
— Peter Della Penna (@PeterDellaPenna) December 31, 2023
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