England’s opening batsmen Alastair Cook and Mark Stoneman walk onto the ground for the start of the first day of the first Ashes cricket test match in Gabba. (Reuters)
Former Australian cricketer Allan Border wants the iconic Gabba cricket ground in Brisbane to be knocked down and built a new 60,000 seating a new stadium at Victoria Park (Queensland) which is viable to play rugby and Australian football in addition to cricket in it.
“I’d be knocking down the Gabba and building a new venue from scratch at Victoria Park,” Border said to Queensland masthead. “A brand new 60,000-seat stadium suits rugby, cricket, Aussie rules, and the Olympics, and the Gabba becomes housing.”
The discussions of demolishing the 129-year-old and rebuilding for the 2032 Olympics have been going on for a long time. However, the Queensland government recently rejected the plan to rebuild it for 2.7 billion dollars.
Earlier an independent review would suggest a 3.4 billion dollar proposal to construct a new stadium in Victoria Park which too got rejected. The uncertainty around the ground has meant that Cricket Australia reportedly is looking to skip Gabba from the Test summer Rooster after the 2025/26 Ashes.
“They (Cricket Australia) haven’t got any certainty about the Gabba, so we’re off the roster,” Border would say. “It’s sad, but they’ve got to have some certainty, probably over the next four years, if they can use the Gabba or not.”
“Because we have an election coming up, nobody wants to touch the hot potato of announcing where the main venue would be. But I’ll have a crack and say knock the Gabba down for urban renewal, and because it’s on the city fringe, you could probably pay for the Olympics just by selling the property,” Border added,” Border would further say.
Australia has played 66 Test matches at the Gabba of which they have won 42, drew 13, lost 10 and one game ended up in a tie. In the 2020/21 Border Gavaskar Trophy India defeated Australia by three wickets which ended the 32-year unbeaten streak of the hosts at the iconic venue.
