India lights up Sabina Park with LED scoreboard gift as Jamaica prepares for CPL return

KINGSTON, Ja­maica – Sabi­na Park, the hal­lowed turf of West In­di­an crick­et, has re­ceived a ma­jor tech­no­log­i­cal up­grade.

A state-of-the-art LED elec­tron­ic score­board, a gift from the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia, was of­fi­cial­ly un­veiled at the his­toric venue on Sun­day.

In­dia’s Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs, Dr S. Jais­hankar, who is on an of­fi­cial vis­it to the is­land, pulled back the cur­tain on the score­board dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the ground.

Dr Jais­hankar al­so re­vealed the new­ly mint­ed In­dia-Ja­maica friend­ship lo­go, sym­bol­is­ing the deep­en­ing ties be­tween the two na­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr. the Most Hon. An­drew Hol­ness led the cho­rus of grat­i­tude, ex­press­ing deep­est ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of In­dia for their “gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tion and stead­fast com­mit­ment to the de­vel­op­ment of crick­et on Ja­maican shores.”

“The score­board it­self is a time­ly ad­di­tion to Sabi­na Park, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Ja­maica pre­pares to re­turn to the Caribbean Pre­mier League this sum­mer with our own new lo­cal fran­chise, the Ja­maica Kings­men,” Dr Hol­ness said.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so re­mind­ed the au­di­ence that In­dia’s sup­port for Ja­maican crick­et is not new. In Jan­u­ary 2024, the In­di­an gov­ern­ment do­nat­ed more than 90 crick­et kits, val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$50,000, to the Ja­maica Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion, which were dis­trib­uted among pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools across the is­land.

“In 2014, In­dia pro­vid­ed grant as­sis­tance of US$2.1 mil­lion for the in­stal­la­tion of flood­lights at this very ground. In­dia has been a con­sis­tent and gen­er­ous part­ner in build­ing the in­fra­struc­ture of Ja­maican sports, and we are most grate­ful,” Dr Hol­ness added.

Be­yond the hard­ware, the Prime Min­is­ter em­pha­sised the cul­tur­al bond be­tween the two crick­et­ing na­tions. He not­ed that the new friend­ship lo­go speaks to the “warmth, longevi­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty” of the re­la­tion­ship, one forged not in diplo­mat­ic halls but through a shared love of crick­et.

“Nowhere is this more beau­ti­ful­ly demon­strat­ed than in the mu­tu­al ad­mi­ra­tion our two na­tions hold for each oth­er’s great play­ers. In­di­an crick­et fans share Ja­maica’s deep af­fec­tion for the uni­verse boss, Chris Gayle. Ja­maican fans, in turn, have long revered the lit­tle mas­ter, Sachin Ten­dulkar, and Sabi­na Park has its own his­to­ry with him,” Dr Hol­ness said.

In his re­marks, Dr Jais­hankar echoed those sen­ti­ments, stat­ing that the score­board will en­hance the love for the game and the com­fort with which peo­ple watch it.

He point­ed out that Ja­maican crick­eters are cheered by In­di­an crowds as if they are their own.

“The last time In­dia played at Sabi­na Park was in 2017. I hope to­day’s cer­e­mo­ny plants the seeds for the re­turn of In­di­an crick­eters to walk in­to this ground again and to add new chap­ters to our crick­et­ing his­to­ry,” Dr Jais­hankar shared.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Gen­der, En­ter­tain­ment and Sport, Hon. Olivia Grange, reaf­firmed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to keep­ing Sabi­na Park at the fore­front of mod­ern crick­et.

“We have ex­pend­ed sig­nif­i­cant re­sources to Sabi­na Park, fit for mod­ern crick­et. We in­stalled new lights last year that en­abled Sabi­na Park to, for the first time, host day and night Test and T20 match­es,” she said.

Min­is­ter Grange added that Ja­maica is grate­ful to re­ceive the score­board, which will fur­ther mod­ernise the venue.

“Work­ing with all the stake­hold­ers, we will en­able and in­spire more great mo­ments right here at Sabi­na Park. We are com­mit­ted to the suc­cess of our sports de­vel­op­ment plan, which aims to de­vel­op all sports from the grass­roots to the high-per­for­mance lev­el,” she said.

(CMC)