The first Caribbean Premier League (CPL) eliminator between the Trinbago Knight Riders and the Barbados Royals was abruptly halted last night after three of the six lighting towers at the National Stadium in Providence went out during the former’s innings.
Darkness blanketed a large portion of the venue at approximately 9:20hrs with only one delivery bowled in the final over of the Knight Riders innings. The venue, which was constructed for the 2007 50-Over World Cup, falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.
While many who departed the venue due to the delay thought that it was an issue associated with the Guyana Power Light (GPL), the venue is actually powered by its own electrical apparatus. Azad Ibrahim is currently the facility’s manager.
President Irfaan Ali was present at the facility during the debacle, which lasted nearly two hours.
The lights were eventually restored, paving the way for the staging of a five-over contest at 11:01 pm.
The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport and the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) last night said in a joint statement that all CPL matches at the Providence Stadium, Guyana were powered from independent Generating Sets located in the National Stadium and not by the GPL grid. GPL has been on standby at all matches to render technical assistance to the Stadium at all times.
During the nineteenth over, the joint statement said that three floodlights that were powered by an independent generator lost power, thus causing a disruption to the match. The GPL technical team on standby immediately began rendering help and restored power to two of three floodlights on the same circuit. The Stadium’s Technical staff and GPL worked assiduously to restore power to the third floodlight which had a technical fault with the underground cable feeding power to that Floodlight. The statement said that a substitute cable was installed quicky to have this floodlight operational. This was achieved around 10.51 pm.
Additional technical assessments will be done immediately after the game to avoid any recurrence, the statement added.
