Column: Squeeze goes on cricket in Christchurch

By Don Cameron

There may be the temptation for Aucklanders to have a quiet, sardonic chortle at the evidence that Lancaster Park at Jade Stadium will not have a cricket test next summer, and only two of the 11 one-day internationals involving the touring sides from West Indies and Australia.

There have been times in the distant past when Christchurch folk regarded Lancaster Park as the high altar of the game, traditionally the only proper venue for the really big matches.

More recently there have been other southern folk who have ridiculed the unusual shape of Eden Park and efforts to extract a pitch there of the high quality which seemed to be standard for Lancaster Park.

Closer inspection of the near future of Jade Stadium should move an Aucklander from scorn to sympathy that Lancaster Park in particular, and Canterbury sport in general, are facing a three-way tug-of-war that may turn a sporting paradise into a local political mess.

In what were, by comparison, the good old days, Lancaster Park was amiably administered by the Victory Park board of control, set up immediately after the First World War and comprising representatives from cricket, rugby, the Commercial Travellers' Association (which had raised the money to pay off the park's debts) and the Mayor of Christchurch.

As cricket and rugby had six of the 10 votes and were the regular and traditional users of the park, the Victory Park board was very sympathetic to both sports and the park flourished.

Now the park is known as Jade Stadium, and is run as a local authority trading enterprise, without direct representation from either Canterbury rugby or cricket, and more in the control of businessmen and the city council. So tradition, and sympathetic treatment of either or both the two major sports have been cast aside.

Rugby, as the major source of income when the All Black, Super 12 and national championship games bring big gates, has been able to take a stronger hand.

Cricket was required to reduce the pitch block from seven to four strips, with the addition of the portable pitch.

With Super 12 rugby encroaching into March, and the national championship into October, cricket now complains its share has been trimmed from six months to four.

Cricket would like an alternate first-class ground in the city, but the bylaws prevent the closing in of Hagley Park, a Village complex near QE2 is not adequate, and the main QE2 field would require $10 million (most from the city council) to come close to international standard.

Much of the muscle which is squeezing cricket out comes from rugby. But as the major producer of money, rugby can argue it should be the major user of the ground.

Not that rugby is happy at being regarded by some as the dog in this particular manger.

In fact Steve Tew, the Canterbury rugby chief executive, makes a very good case for Christchurch to have a new, purpose-built football (rugby, league, soccer) ground just as Wellington will have with the new railyards stadium.

Nor is rugby thoroughly convinced that the $40 million improvement scheme for Jade (including major work at the old No 5 stand end) is the ideal solution.

The $4 million which the city council has earmarked as its share of the stadium development has also put more control in the Jade Stadium Ltd-council hands, and weakened the grip which cricket and rugby had on the decisions of the old Victory Park board.

At the same time, the board must try to keep faith with the sporting-corporate faithful who were persuaded to pay for the 30-odd hospitality suites in the No 3 stand and the new Hadlee complex. Two one-day internationals and only the possibility of major Shell Cup matches is little summer reward for the corporate folk and their guests.

What is the answer? Neither rugby nor cricket is happy, and the Victory Park board may not be wreathed in smiles at the present and even future state of Lancaster Park/Jade Stadium.

The solution seems to be with the city fathers. A strident political effort to jerk Christchurch into the sportsground 21st century might have a lot of vote-catching clout.