Match-ready, declares KSCA

Chinnaswamy stadium spruced up to welcome 2011 World Cup

Dressing room facilities have been upgraded, KSCA president Anil Kumble has guaranteed ‘clean’ if not necessarily luxurious washrooms for the paying spectator, the media box has been enlarged and air-conditioned, pillars across all stands have been painted.

The Chinnaswamy stadium is still a work in progress, finishing touches being applied at most places. The stadium will undergo a full revamp over the next couple of years, but for now, Kumble and his team are targeting the February 13 warm-up match between India and Australia as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup proper.

“In all terms of preparation, we are match-ready,” the former Indian skipper said on Monday evening. “We are treating the practice match as the World Cup game from an administrative point of view. Whatever preparations need to be done will done by then.”
The dressing room is the sanctum of the players, and therefore deserves to be a structure of comfort. “We have changed the look, although the layout is the same,” Kumble observed. “We had restrictions of time as well as space. We therefore had to around those restrictions, be it for the players’ room, the commentary box or the media centre. Given all the factors and the various design constraints of the stadium, I think we have done the best we could.

“The players deserve the best. Hopefully, we have addressed every detail the player requires when he is the dressing room, be it seating or keeping his bags or the showers and toilets. We have worked on every little detail.”

Spectator comfort too is high on the agenda of the new KSCA establishment. “We will have two electronic scoreboards. What we will certainly do is bring in permanents seats in the future.

“Going forward, we want to ensure that every spectator having a valid ticket will have a permanent seat. We want to create something where even if you come two hours late, the spectator will have his seat reserved. We have upgraded toilet facilities, and while they may not be luxurious, I can guarantee that they will be neat.

The Kumble-Javagal Srinath team entered cricket administration last November carrying innumerable hopes, and the ace leggie is aware that there will be the pressure of expectations. “It’s the same as playing for cricket,” he pointed out.

“You create your own benchmark and achieve that and try and live up to your expectations. I know there are plenty of expectations from people, not just trying see the positive things but also bringing up the flaws. We are open to that as long as we know that we are putting our heart and soul to whatever we are doing.

“In the last two months, I can vouch for the fact that we have up lived up the expectations. We have put together a quarterly plan.

“In the short-term, we had plans for some upgrades and I’m happy that we are 95 percent there. In the next few day, the other five percent will be complete. Hopefully on the 13th, we will get a stamp of approval.”

Kumble revealed that the ground itself required a revamp -- “It probably is tired” -- and that exercise would be taken up after the IPL. He added that there were plans to market tickets aggressively for the three non-India World Cup matches in Bangalore.

“We are looking at combos and discounts to push tickets for non-India matches. We will look at schools but it’s exam time, so it’s difficult to go to schools and draw them.”

Ready for action

* KSCA is match-ready, Feb 13 warm-up game to be used as dress rehearsal.
* Dressing rooms and media and commentators boxes refurbished.
* Seating capacity to be increased from 40,000 to 65,000 in a couple of years.
* Entire stadium and playing area to be upgraded in stages after IPL IV.
* Upto 10,000 tickets for Feb 27 Ind-Engl match may be out of KSCA ambit.
* Combos and discounts to woo fans for non-India World Cup matches.
* Security machinery in place for Cup, City police co-ordinating with ICC security team.