The Sri Lanka Cricket Board has announced that the redevelopment of Nuwara Eliya Radella Cricket Stadium, which is the highest international cricket ground above sea level in Sri Lanka, has been completed.
The announcement further states that the stadium is now ready for the training of the national team before the tour of New Zealand, which will have a decisive impact on the upcoming World Cup.
Based on the agreement reached between Dimbula Athletics Club and Cricket Club, which owns the Radella Stadium, and Sri Lanka Cricket, Sri Lanka Cricket offered to contribute to the redevelopment of the stadium.
A 20-member, highly experienced stadium management team headed by Godfrey Dambarera, Sri Lanka Cricket’s International Venues and Facilities Manager, contributed to the restoration of the stadium to make it suitable for national team training.
The Radella stadium consists of 4 main turf wickets and 5 newly laid training turf wickets. In addition, this stadium is equipped with various basic facilities required for the national team’s training activities. as well as
Radella Stadium, located at a height of 4200 feet above sea level, was built in 1856. When Sri Lanka was under British rule, the white people who worked on plantations in the Central Highlands used Radella for their sports activities, and at that time, Dimbula-Dik Oya had a strong rugby team and a cricket team named Radella was established. As the whites left Sri Lanka, those groups died out.
In addition to Radella, Talduwe, not far from Avissawella, and Tebuwana, not far from Matugama, had good quality stadiums and sports clubs established in connection with the planters’ clubs. But with the nationalization of estates in 1975, one stadium also went to abandand . In such a background, the modernization of the Radella stadium will bring happiness to the cricket lovers of this country.