By Neena Bhandari, IANS
Sydney : To ensure that the Baggy Greens remain the world’s best cricket team, the Australian government today injected 17.5 million Australian dollars ($15.56 million) for a major redevelopment of the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane, where some of the country’s top players have trained.
Ricky Ponting, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Karen Rolton and Belinda Clark are among 76 international cricketers, including several Indians, who have benefited from the coaching, training and sports medicine facilities provided by the centre at various stages of their careers over the past 20 years.
With other cricket playing nations catching up with the development of their own programmes, Cricket Australia chief executive officer James Sutherland said: “Its continued development is an important part of our strategy to keep our number one ranking in the world”.
This funding will boost redevelopment plans and will ensure access to world-class facilities for cricketers and the community in general.
The redevelopment includes an indoor training centre, indoor lap and recovery pool and sports IT, science and analysis room.
“We need major redevelopment at the centre to keep Australian cricket ahead of the pack and welcome the federal government’s contribution of A$17.5 million of what will be a A$35 million project,” added Sutherland.
Centre’s manager and former Australian women’s team captain Belinda Clark emphasised that the world’s number one status can be maintained “by having access to state-of-the-art cricket facilities, coaches, administrators and sports science and medical staff.
“The Centre of Excellence, supported by the Australian Institute of Sport, provides a wide range of leading-edge training and development initiatives for Australia’s top players, coaches and umpires,” she said.
The AIS men’s cricket programme was established in 1987 based in Adelaide as a joint initiative with the then Australian Cricket Board to further training and development of country’s elite cricketers. It was then known as the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy.
In 2004, the training base was moved to the Allan Border Field in Brisbane and renamed the Commonwealth Bank Centre of Excellence.