Brian Lara disappointed as TT board turns down requests for Sachin Tendulkar stand

Honouring the services of their charismatic batsman Brian Lara, Trinidad and Tobago’s People’s National Movement (PNM) party decided to construct a stadium on his name in their country. With the ambitious project all set to turn a reality, Lara received a setback from the president of the T&T Board Azim Bassarath and People’s National Movement party.

Lara had requested for a stand on the name of his very dear friend and arch rival on the field, Sachin Tendulkar. But Bassarath turned down his request, which left the former Windies captain disappointed. Bassarath on record has said that India never had a stand on the name of a West Indian cricketer, then why should they do it. He said they are considering stands on the names of Ian Bishop, Larry Gomes or Gus Logie.

“India have so many stadiums and I don’t know any of them have stands named after any of our West Indian greats so why must we name a stand after Tendulkar. I thought there would be stands named after Ian Bishop, or Larry Gomes or Gus Logie. Not Tendulkar,” opined the T&T board president.

It is being speculated in the local media that the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) final in the upcoming season would be the first big match played in the new stadium, which is located 50 km away from the iconic Queen’s Park Oval.

A longtime dream which finally got materialised

The Afro-Trinidadian People’s National Movement (PNM) aimed at crucifying the monopoly of the Queen Park Cricket Club and that’s one of the main reasons behind the construction of this stadium. But when the Indo-Trinidadian party United National Congress (UNC) gained power in 2011, there were many hindrances for the construction to progress as per schedule.

There was no work done on the stadium for four years between 2011-2015. It was the UNC party who opposed the project all this while and they’re now against Brian Lara’s intention to have a stand on Tendulkar’s name. The latter was invited to the grand opening ceremony event conducted a little while ago, but Tendulkar failed to make an appearance and this left many of the Trinidadians disappointed.

Located near a small village, Tarouba, the initial cost of building this stadium was about 250 million Trinidad dollars but it shot up to 1.1 billion. If it is able to attract more crowd, it will start snatching most of the matches from its local rival Queen’s Park Oval.