Boland Park

Description

Surrounded by beautiful mountains and trees, Boland Park is a multi-purpose stadium that offers lovely grassed embankments for spectators to relax and enjoy a game of cricket. Situated in Paarl, in the Western Province of South Africa, the stadium has a capacity of 10 000 spectators. It is currently used mostly for cricket matches and was proud host to three matches during the 2003 Cricket World Cup. The Boland cricket team and the Cape Cobras both use the ground for home games.

In 1992 the Boland Cricket Union united with the Boland Cricket Board and started in the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) as a B-Province. In 1994, under the watchful eye and coaching of Bob Woolmer, the province gained A-status.

In 1995, Boland Cricket Board's headquarters was established in Paarl at Boland Park. Boland Park was the first ground with indoor net facilities, and so the Cricket Academy was started with Eddie Barlow as the Manager/Coach. A number of national players have come out of the academy, including Roger Telemachus, Paul Adams, Justin Ontong, and Charl Langeveldt.

Boland Park had a memorable introduction to One Day International cricket when Zimbabwe and India met on 27 January 1997, with the match ending in a dramatic tie. In 2001 the ground was home to one of the biggest turnarounds the game of cricket has ever seen. India thrashed Kenya by 186 runs after tallying a massive 351 for 3, led by 111 from Sourav Ganguly and 146 from Sachin Tendulkar. Only a week earlier, the Kenyans had crushed India by 70 runs after bowling them out for only 176.

In the past years Boland Cricket has had many highlights, one of which was winning the Standard Bank Cup in the 1999/2000 season. A strong cricket culture makes Boland Cricket one of the best regions, and they have proved to play a vital role in the development programme of the UCBSA.