AHEAD of today’s player draft for the 2014 Caribbean Premier League (CPL) Twenty20 (T20) competition, organisers are boosted by Tuesday’s signing of a memorandum of understanding to have floodlights installed at Sabina Park.

“I think it’s a very proud day for Jamaica,” chief executive officer of the CPL Damien O’Donohoe told the Jamaica Observer after the agreement was formalised at the Sabina ground.

The Indian government will provide a grant of US$2.1 million to its Jamaican counterparts towards the venture. The Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) will grant a further US$600,000 to cover the estimated total project value of US$2.7 million.

Added O’Donohoe: “Any major stadium now needs to be under lights and, of course, this was the only stadium without lights last year. It’s fantastic what the Government has done with the help of India to find the money to put in the lights.”

The second staging of the CPL is scheduled to begin in July and the light installation is expected to take three months.

The Jamaica Tallawahs franchise won the inaugural CPL as games staged at Sabina Park began early afternoon instead of during the late evening — like in other territories — to attract after-work spectators and prime-time television audience in the wider Caribbean.

O’Donohoe argued that the large turnout of supporters for those daytime affairs was an indication of the success of hosting games at Sabina.

“Last year we had to play some of the games during the week with no lights and we packed the ground and the place was absolutely jumping,” the CPL boss said.

Managed by the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), the contract was awarded to local electrical supplies firm FosRich Group, which will be working with Philips Lighting, an international entity that has strong ties in Europe, Asia and South America.

Cecil Foster, the managing director of FosRich, said work will start as “quickly as possible” and “the best possible technology” will be used to “get this job done for Jamaica and Jamaicans”.

Minister with Responsibility for Sports Natalie Neita Headley, who has been integral in bringing the various stakeholders together in thrashing out the deal, said the CPL aside, the upgrade will be a huge plus for Jamaica.

“It’s been over a year we’ve been negotiating. We were trying to meet last year’s CPL deadline, however ,that did not materialise.

“The work is going to be a night and day operation. Even if we do not make it this CPL it will be good for Jamaica.

“We are hoping that with the installation of lights at Sabina Park we’ll be able to see a lot more events at these locations, those events that we have not been able to stage in the past,” the minister said.

In some quarters, considerable disapproval has surrounded the absence of artificial lights at Sabina Park, one of the Caribbean’s leading cricket venues, since the failure to put in the infrastructure for the region’s staging of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, though the country disbursed over US$100 million for its part in hosting the tournament.