London Stadium is not suitable for cricket

The London Stadium has been deemed to be unsuitable for cricket and will no longer be used for the 2019 Cricket World Cup. World Cup managing director Steve Elworthy told the Daily Mirror  “The Olympic Stadium is big enough to host cricket, we commissioned three drop-in pitches and they are currently growing at Loughborough. But we would have had to build a whole set of temporary infrastructure in the stands that would have reduced the capacity by 15 to 18,000 seats, and suddenly it wasn’t so attractive economically.

“The floodlights are potentially an issue – for the London Olympics they were on top of the stands, but they have now been dropped below roof level, maybe slightly too low from a cricket point of view. That stadium has also got massive jumbo screens at either end, but we would not have been able to use them because they would have to be sightscreens. The pitch would have to be on a north-south axis so the batsman is not blinded by sunlight.”

Claret and Hugh say: Maybe London Stadium owners E20 have finally seen common sense in making renters pay the true cost of any infrastructure changes rather that chasing loss-making events.  The London Stadium will host American Baseball this summer in which many see as a vanity project for the London Mayor which is likely to be loss-making for the stadium. Trying to make the stadium all things to all people was always going to be a challenge with the current seating limitations.   Football is and will continue to be the largest revenue earner for the former Olympic Stadium and the Stadium owners should concentrate on events that complement the football layout rather than ones that require massive and complex modification to achieve.