At the Gabbatoir, grass on wicket, hot conditions and possible rain in coming days
Mate, the Indian team bus is going to pull up anytime, soon, all ready?” A man with a walkie talkie asks a security guard near an entrance to the Gabba. It’s around 8:45 am on Thursday. “Not many fans here as yet,” wonders the guard, and the walkie-talkie man smiles, “good for us, isn’t it!”. Across the road from them, a controversial train station is being constructed. An underground rail tunnel has already been built. There is no scaffolding to block it. None is needed either as no dust swirls up from the site, unlike in India. “Dust? Oh we sprinkle some chemical stuff into the water, and spray it on the site every morning. The dust doesn’t lift,” says a construction worker, out for
The station was intended for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, and the Gabba was supposed to be pulled down and rebuilt according to the needs for that global event. But that $ 2.7billion dollar rebuilding plan is now on hold as Gabba has proved an architectural nightmare. It’s almost sandwiched amidst a cluster of buildings that surround it and there is a school nearby. The entire arena’s footprint doesn’t apparently match Olympic requirements. A review is on.
Inside the stadium, the dust on the India-Australia series has just kicked up after it went even-steven at Adelaide and the caravan moves to the Gabbatoir. It’s an unimpressive character-less stadium that won’t look out of place somewhere in the interiors of India.