Antigua Recreation Ground is one of cricket’s great venues – and it is making a comeback

When England trained at the ramshackle Antigua Rec Ground last week it brought back memories of the historic cricketing feats performed at the tiny stadium nestled in the pulsating streets of downtown St John’s.

Now Telegraph Sport can reveal there are plans to renovate the Rec with the aim of returning it to its former glory as one of the Caribbean’s most atmospheric international grounds with a £6 million upgrade and refit.

Memories of playing at the Rec still give old England bowlers nightmares. It was at the ARG that Brian Lara twice cut England down with world record scores of 375 in 1994 and 400 not out 10 years later, the 20th anniversary having just passed recently.

Viv Richards hammered the then-fastest Test century against England in 1986 off 56 balls and the Australians did not escape either; West Indies completed the highest successful run chase in Test cricket against them at the Rec in 2003.

The party atmosphere was legendary with performer Gravy entertaining the crowds from in the stands and even on top of them.

But the already dilapidated Rec fell into disrepair and disuse when the Antigua government built a sanitised new stadium for the 2007 World Cup in the middle of the island that is only accessible by car. Progress was traded for atmosphere and history.

The Rec briefly flickered back into life in 2009 when the England Test was shifted there because the pitch at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium was unsafe but since then it has been used mainly as a home for the Antigua & Barbuda football team which was granted a 30-year lease.

Now it has been returned to cricket, with the playing area relaid and dressing rooms spruced up so it could be used as a training facility for this World Cup.

The plan is to evaluate what needs to be demolished and what can be salvaged with a view to turning the ground into a base for the Leeward Islands first-class team and then apply to the ICC for a licence as an international venue. Again, this is as long as the Antigua government can secure help with funding from international investors after showing its commitment to the ground by blowing the mothballs off it for this World Cup.

“It was important for us to put it back into use now so the world can see it is now a cricketing venue and we can attract international partners to do a full retrofit and renovation of the facility,” Daryll Matthew, the Antigua minister for sport told The Telegraph. “One of the challenges of living in a small island state is that resources are limited. When we apply for funding to do capital infrastructure work on a facility like the Rec, I am competing with the minister of health asking for a new MRI machine. But the thinking is if we can get the facility back into usable condition we can seek investors who see value in bringing it back to the glory days it once had. Once we are able to do that we will make an application to ICC for it to be considered as a certified international venue. That is medium to long term thinking.

“It could be a fantastic T20 venue. It is a compact, intimate and accessible venue. We have a franchise in CPL (Caribbean Premier League) and so we are having conversations with them about using it for some of the CPL games. Once we can do that we can only go upwards from there.

“Not doing anything is not an option. If you look at the development of capital cities around the world a lot have a stadium within the proximity of the city. Facilities like that bring life to a city. You will see bars and restaurants set up around the stadium and so I can tell you when the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium was being constructed I was never a fan. I thought money could have been put into refurbishing the ARG.”

Matthew used to watch cricket there as a child with his father and saw both of Lara’s record breaking scores. He knows his plan will rely on attracting external investment but if he does that, he reckons the work can be completed in 12 months.

Hosting Test cricket is unlikely because ICC rules now demand runoffs behind the advertising boards for health and safety reasons and there is just not enough space to expand the tiny site due to the surrounding streets, including the colonial-era prison still in use today and where Richards’s father was once an officer. But with white-ball cricket using smaller boundaries, Matthew is hopeful the West Indies will play there again, attracting people to watch at a ground more convenient for the fans.

The current World Cup has helped with a spruce up, and a chance to make public the plans for making the ARG usable again. “You have to make a decision to come here,” he says pointing at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. “With the Antigua Rec you can go on your lunch break. It has floodlights, there is seating for about 4-5,000 spectators and the field is in good condition, it drains well. It is just a facelift and cosmetic work.”

But will it remain a graveyard for bowlers? “Nobody wants to see a bowler dehumanised,” says Matthew. Some ex-England players would say that is 40 years overdue.