Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Crick­et su­per­star and for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Bri­an Lara said the pro­posed 20/20 match at the con­tro­ver­sial Bri­an Lara sta­di­um is not 100 per cent con­firmed. His com­ments came af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning an­nounced that the sta­di­um in Tarou­ba would be opened in time for the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in No­vem­ber. Man­ning al­so said he hoped to bring Lara out of re­tire­ment to play a crick­et match at the sta­di­um–the sub­ject of in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry. But speak­ing to re­porters at the Gulf City Sports Out­let yes­ter­day, Lara said the match was not con­firmed.

He said: "The par­tic­u­lars of that (match) is not known, and it is not 100 per cent con­firmed, so it is dif­fi­cult to com­ment. "Every­one is look­ing for­ward to the sta­di­um fin­ish­ing. I am al­so ex­cit­ed about it and we have to make sure that every­thing is in good or­der so that we have a prop­er crick­et match and open­ing cer­e­mo­ny." Re­gard­ing the de­lays in the sta­di­um con­struc­tion, Lara said he was not privy to de­tails. He said five years ago he men­tioned to Man­ning he want­ed to see young­sters hav­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to har­ness tal­ent.

He added: "I told him what I want to see is an acad­e­my where our young­sters will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to har­ness tal­ent in a cor­rect en­vi­ron­ment. "That is still my dream. Per­tain­ing to all the out­side and pe­riph­er­al prob­lems, I am not go­ing to get in­volved in that." Lara said he be­lieved the sta­di­um, once com­plet­ed, would be ben­e­fi­cial to the youths. "Deep down in­side, I know what I want to see out there and I know that it can still come to fruition," Lara said.