Having completed construction work at the Eden Gardens and gauging the satisfaction of the ICC venue inspection panel that visited the stadium on Monday, confident Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) officials are now eyeing the Ireland-India match here.
"Our work is complete. We are waiting for ICC's approval and following that we will try and convince the BCCI and get an India match here. We can't imagine the World Cup happening here and India not playing at the Eden," said CAB joint-secretary Biswarup Dey.
The trio of Campbell Jamieson, Chris Tetley and Eugene van Vuuren went to all parts of the stadium and, according to CAB president Jagmohan Dalmiya, were satisfied with the work done.
Except for some dusting and mopping, reconstruction is complete as all areas of the venue was made available for the media to see. "We will have a video conference on Tuesday and only after that I will be in a position to announce the decision of the ICC panel," said Ratnakar Shetty, who did not accompany the inspection panel on Monday. BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, however, said: "If the CAB wants to get another India match at Eden, it has to talk to the ICC. BCCI's part in the whole thing was over and then the ICC disapproved it. Now if Eden wants another match it has to talk to ICC."
CAB officials are not giving up hope. "Professor Eugene, who is the venue consultant, was so impressed with the work that he told me that if he had imagined Eden would be able to make such progress from the time of the last inspection (January 25) the February 27 match probably would not have been shifted out," said Chitrak Mitra, the man in charge of the construction work at Eden.
{{/usCountry}}CAB officials are not giving up hope. "Professor Eugene, who is the venue consultant, was so impressed with the work that he told me that if he had imagined Eden would be able to make such progress from the time of the last inspection (January 25) the February 27 match probably would not have been shifted out," said Chitrak Mitra, the man in charge of the construction work at Eden.
{{/usCountry}}"Work in the stadium is complete. We had already notified the ICC that parts of the roof would not be in place for the World Cup and the eight generators would not be connected to the light towers. The latter will take two more days," Mitra added.
It was learnt that the CAB has offered 12 corporate boxes to accommodate the ICC sponsors. "The ICC had a requirement for 250 seats for sponsors and we have offered them a dozen of our corporate boxes. It seems they were satisfied with what they saw," Mitra said.