Cricket: State of the ark at Basin

No one is prepared to take the blame for the decrepit scoreboard at the Basin Reserve, which deserves a place in a cricket museum rather than at New Zealand's only dedicated test cricket ground.

There are no plans to replace the board, which was state-of-the-art when built in 1981.

It was a sad sight during the second test against England, with letters in wonky rows, P-tiles cut in half to become Ds, 7-tiles hung upside down to represent Ls, and bits of white tape stuck on other tiles to change them into other letters.

The tiles are magnetised and cost $19 each. They could not be replaced over the weekend.

The scoreboard is operated by Cricket Wellington, which runs the matches. The ground is owned by the Wellington City Council, which pays the bills. The ground is managed, and has money spent on it, by the WestpacTrust Stadium Trust.

Television coverage of the tatty board was beamed into homes in England and cricket-mad Asia.

Cricket Wellington chief executive Ervin McSweeney said: "It wasn't a great look for Wellington."

The electronic part of the board short-circuited in December during a game, and $50,000 was spent on an overhaul.

New letters and numbers for the board were bought at the same time, but blew away in the Wellington wind, leaving the scoreboard operators to improvise.

The council said yesterday that it had no plans to replace the scoreboard.

Spokeswoman Trina Saffioti said the council planned to spend $85,000 over the winter on maintenance of the R. A. Vance Stand, and had spent $10,000 this year on the scoreboard.

She said it was the stadium trust's responsibility to look after it, but the trust said it had no plans to replace it.

McSweeney hoped the scoreboard facilities would be checked before the next big matches.

The scoreboard had been in place some time and technology had moved on since it was erected, but it would be "no simple exercise" to replace it.

- NZPA