Vin­ode Mam­chan

When Broward Coun­ty cul­tur­al ac­tivist Den­nis Singh want­ed to have a crick­et fa­cil­i­ty erect­ed at Lauder­hill, he de­cid­ed to bring across a num­ber of of­fi­cials of Broward Coun­ty to Ch­agua­nas Trinidad to meet with the Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion in an ef­fort to get more in­for­ma­tion about the de­sign and build­ing of a top class crick­et venue. Singh in an in­ter­view spoke about the US$70m fa­cil­i­ty, "I al­ways want­ed to have a prop­er crick­et sta­di­um here in Fort Laud­erdale, so I de­cid­ed to take a cou­ple of the of­fi­cials from the Coun­ty of­fice to Trinidad to look at crick­et fa­cil­i­ties down there. "The May­or of Ch­agua­nas Or­lan­do Nages­sar, as well as the deputy may­or Gopaul Bood­han were very help­ful in­deed and I must say thanks to them. Af­ter that tour of Trinidad, the of­fi­cials bought the idea and to­day in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et is be­ing played in our back­yards.

"This means a lot for the peo­ple up here be­cause not every­one can trav­el to view top class crick­et. around the world. We think this would do a lot for our crick­et up here and for the young­sters." The Cen­tral Broward Crick­et ground is the on­ly In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) ap­proved venue in Amer­i­ca. The mul­ti-pur­pose fa­cil­i­ty, opened in 2007, is a 110-acre com­plex with the crick­et sta­di­um the ma­jor high­light. The Sta­di­um has a 5,000 seat cov­ered area and a vast grass mound that can eas­i­ly hold an­oth­er 20,000 fans. Apart from the crick­et fa­cil­i­ty, which in­cludes a mod­ern two-sto­ried pavil­ion, there are ad­di­tion­al fields which can ac­com­mo­date two crick­et fields or four soc­cer are­nas as well as light­ed net­ball, bas­ket­ball and ten­nis fa­cil­i­ties. There is al­so the ex­pan­sive Trop­i­cal Splash Wa­ter Play­ground in the park's en­vi­rons, as well as a 1.5 mile na­ture trail and two large cov­ered play­grounds.