The Ground
Situated in the dry zone, the original rationale behind the project was that it provided Sri Lanka with the potential to host one-day matches throughout the year. Construction was funded by the Board of Control for Cricket in Srilanka (BCCSL) and championed by the then BCCSL President, Thilanga Sumathipala. Construction took only 167 days. After construction and the inaugural match it sat idle due to complications with the lease and the contractors. International cricket finally returned in May 2003, the venue staging all seven matches of the tournament because of monsoon rains in the south.
The pitch is bowler friendly. Seamers benefit in the morning because of the high water table and heavy sweating. Spinners benefit in the afternoon when the pitch can crumble.
Read more about this topic: Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium
Famous quotes containing the word ground:
“A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“The thing that made me more and more afraid
Was that we’d ground it sharp and hadn’t known,
And now were only wasting precious blade.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)