T20 World Cup 2024: The Nassau County International Stadium is one of the venues hosting the upcoming T20 World Cup 2024. The tournament heads to the USA and the Caribbean with 20 teams vying for the ultimate glory in the 20-over format from June 2 onwards. It will be the first time that the USA will be hosting a Cricket World Cup as they are co-hosts along with the Caribbean.
But this was not that easy. Choosing the venues was a big task that was needed to be addressed. By November 2022, the work to decide upon the third venue in the States was on. Don Lockerbie, the venue development officer for the 2024 T20 World Cup, had a task to do. He searched for a few venues including Woodley Park in Los Angeles and Van Cortlandt Park in New York.
The New York City mayor Eric Adams was looking to get Van Cortlandt Park on board as the third venue but the locals opposed the project. Lockerbie said that they considered Los Angeles as the first big venue, considering that cricket will be part of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. But that did not materialise.
LandTek Group's John Sulinski approached Lockerbie with a ground in Eisenhower Park in Nassau County. "John's from Long Island. He told me: 'There's a piece of ground in a park that I think you guys should look at. It's got the right size. And more importantly, it has the right political interest. I think this is a go," Lockerbie said.
The ICC approached the County and it was approved in August 2023. In November the ICC signed a contract with the County and eight matches at the venue were approved.
The site work began on January 8 this year and the construction started as late as in February. This was a race against time. The Nassau County Stadium is the first fully modular stadium. The stands are made up of steel and aluminium and not with concrete structures as the cricket stadiums are generally made up of.
The area chosen for the Nassau County International Stadium is 42 acres which will also have departments such as broadcast, parking and security. But one of the biggest things to work on was the pitches to be used.
The pitches were developed in Adelaide and then transferred to New York via Florida. Even when the venue was not confirmed, ICC approached the Adelaide Oval Turf Solutions in Australia to make the drop-in pitches. They accepted the offer.
The ICC approved to preparation of six pitch trays in Australia's Adelaide. The trays were then transferred to Georgia and then to Florida.
The pitches had to arrive in the US in December and New York, where the Nassau Stadium is based, froze at that time. So they needed to transfer the pitches somewhere else where there was the warm climate. "We knew the pitches weren't arriving [in the US] till early December," the head curator at Adelaide Oval Damian Hough said.
"And we knew that early December in New York is freezing cold. So we couldn't grow the pitches in New York. [We were] relying on LandTek's experience and understanding of the environment. It started with 'Where's your warmest climate?' That's down in Florida. I sort of relate Florida to a Queensland sort of environment in our winter," he added.
The pitches were brought to Florida, where they were rolled and tested. As recently as in April this year, the pitches were brought to New York via 22 trucks from Florida. "This was the biggest fear I had for the entire project. Because if that project failed - moving the wickets to New York and putting them in - then I might as well not finish the stadium, because you can't play on bad wickets," Lockerbie said.
Four main pitches have been fit onto the main square, while six have been fit as practice turfs in the practice area. Hough stayed away from giving his opinions on the pitches. "Our ambition is to produce good-quality pitches - you know, minimal spin, minimal seam, the ball coming onto the bat, and let the players play the shots," he said in April this year.
The work done well. The organisers won the race against time in preparing a modular stadium which will host big clashes including the India vs Pakistan clash on June 9. India will be playing their three group matches out of four at this venue with the first one being against Ireland on June 5.
