Cricket is always searching for innovative things every day to make it better. But now, Test cricket is all set to get an exciting thing. Fans may have seen an indoor stadium for football earlier but this time, they can experience the thrill of Test cricket in an indoor stadium. Hobart’s new stadium at Macquarie Point will host indoor Test cricket and support a Tasmanian team joining the AFL in 2028.
Test Cricket in Indoor Stadium:
A new stadium proposed in Hobart aims to host indoor Test cricket and support the Tasmanian team’s entry into the Australian Football League. The Tasmania Devils, set to become the AFL’s 19th team in 2028, will benefit from this new facility. The venue, designed to seat 23,000 people, will be located at Macquarie Point and feature a transparent roof to accommodate both daytime cricket and nighttime T20 matches.
Concept designs for the Macquarie Point stadium were unveiled recently. The plans incorporate ball-tracking data to ensure the roof is high enough for cricket. This multipurpose stadium is a key element in the deal for the Tasmania Devils to join the AFL. It will offer modern amenities and a unique sporting experience.
Anne Beach’s Words:
Anne Beach, the CEO of Macquarie Point Development Corporation opened up about this. He said, “We want to get to red-ball [cricket], that’s our focus. The tricky thing is…we can’t be accredited until it’s built so what we need to do is keep working through the detail and design process with Cricket [Tasmania] and Cricket Australia and work with them to brief ICC to make sure they have all the information available.”
Later he said, “We are workshopping with them through detailed design so we are making sure we are factoring in everything they need, [so] they have a clear understanding of how it’s coming together then hopefully that sign-off process is pretty smooth. But we do want to get that red-ball sign-off and that’s critical I think to enable that full content to be in the stadium.”
Alistair Richardson’s View on that:
Marvel Stadium hosted indoor ODIs in the early 2000s and BBL games with the roof closed, but Test cricket hasn’t been played indoors yet. Experts state that the roof design minimizes shadow impact on the field. Cox Architecture CEO Alistair Richardson shared his view on this matter.
Richardson said, “Cricket’s biggest concern was the height of the roof…they cited concerns with Marvel Stadium [in Melbourne] where the ball could potentially hit the roof.”
Then he added, “What we’ve done is we’ve worked through looking at Hawk-Eye and the ball-tracking technology, to actually assess the maximum height that anyone’s hit a ball, which is quite interesting. “Then, actually, [we’ve] pushed the roof to 50 meters, which cricket was really happy with, because there’s no instance of anyone hitting a ball at 50 meters.”
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