The founder of a futuristic, environmentally sustainable cricket stadium being built in Spain wants it to host a Test match one day.<\/p>\n
Australian entrepreneur Daniel Weston is overseeing construction of the venue in Playa Flamenca on the Costa Blanca, a 45-minute drive from Alicante.<\/p>\n
The ground, which will be known as Campo Maximo, aims to be one of the world’s most eco-friendly cricket venues, harnessing solar energy and harvesting rainwater.<\/p>\n
Weston wants it to become the “home of European cricket” but has ambitions to stage more high-profile fixtures.<\/p>\n
“I’d love a Test match to be held there,” he told the Stumped podcast.<\/p>\n
“If I can build a place which ends up attracting Test cricket and lovers of Test cricket, that would be special.<\/p>\n
“I also think the Indian Premier League will start going on tour like the NFL, and maybe one day they might want to play a game in Spain.”<\/p>\n
The ground’s most innovative feature will be its outfield, which will use a new type of artificial grass being developed specifically for the venue.<\/p>\n
The synthetic turf is still in the testing phase but has been engineered by experts to replicate the playing characteristics and feel of natural grass.<\/p>\n
Weston describes it as “a short-pile artificial playing surface without loose granular infill”, installed over an elastic pad and specially engineered drainage layers.<\/p>\n
The pioneering surface for the playing areas is intended to significantly reduce maintenance compared with natural grass and will not require fertiliser.<\/p>\n
Weston believes the artificial outfield will be “better” than natural grass for cricket, while the installation of floodlights will allow the sport to be played there “365 days and nights a year”.<\/p>\n
“I was up there in the lab last week. We’re using bowling spikes, the toughest cricket shoes, simulating the fast bowlers pounding into it,” he explained.<\/p>\n
“It’ll be consistent, you won’t have dips and you won’t have places where water accumulates. I think the future will be artificial outfields.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The founder of a futuristic, environmentally sustainable cricket stadium being built in Spain wants it to host a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-810348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}