Friday, September 22 2006 11:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Port of Spain: The problematic Brian Lara Stadium will not be a pre-tournament warm-up match venue for the next year's World Cup in the West Indies.

ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies managing director and CEO Chris Dehring, along with Sports Minister Roger Boynes and ICC venue development officer Don Lockerbie has announced the Brian Lara Stadium would not be used during the global event.



Dehring also confirms that either Guaracara Park or the Sir Frank Worrell Ground at UWI in St Augustine will replace the 'Lara', part of the PNM's planned $850 million elite sports complex in Tarouba.



"Following a venue tour where all facilities were examined it was agreed by the ICC and CWC 2007 that the Brian Lara Stadium would not meet the required warm-up venue standard in the time frame allotted," Dehring says.



He says CWC 2007 Inc is 'comfortable with either of the proposed venues'.

The Stadium, several months behind schedule due to delays caused by inclement weather and the slow delivery of steel is given a two-week extension to reschedule its completion.

But, Boynes says, Government suggested the 'Lara' be replaced. "UDeCoTT had been working very hard to try to push this project along but it was felt that the facility (Brian Lara) was not within the timelines that the ICC set up specifically for completion," he says.



"While we have been assured by UDecott that they could present something by December., The Government of Trinidad and Tobago has formally recommended that the Brian Lara Stadium be taken off the table."