Dreams of watching top-level cricket games at a proposed Macquarie Point roofed stadium are out for a duck after cricket’s major bodies indicated that the venue will be unacceptable.
Cricket Tasmania (CT) and parent body Cricket Australia (CA) say that the shadows likely to be cast by the waffle-like roof structure suit neither play nor broadcast. They also reject proposed mitigations as unworkable.
This means that top-level cricket such as Tests, ODIs, T20Is and state level games will not be played at a venue with this style of roof.
The official business case of Macquarie Point Development Corporation budgets for revenue from such games.
The CT&CA submission to the Tasmanian Planning Commission also says:
The extent to which cricket can be played in the stadium and how many matches may be played each year forms part of the Cost-Benefit Analysis considered in the (TPC) Draft Report. Until such time as stadium design discussions progress to a point where our current concerns can be overcome, CA and CT are unable to confirm that the content assumptions contemplated by that analysis are reliable nor that they can be achieved.
The cricket bodies would prefer a stadium with no roof, or a retractable one. The AFL has insisted that the venue have a fixed roof.
Read Kristie Johnston MP’s statement below. She will be speaking to the media on the issue on Thursday.
Media release – Kristie Johnston, independent MHA for Clark, 21 May 2025
No Cricket at Mac Point Stadium
The business case for the stadium is in tatters after Cricket Australia (CA) and Cricket Tasmania (CT) confirmed this week cricket will not be played at the stadium under the proposed roof.
“The proposed roof structure casts a grid-like pattern of shadows that moves across the field of play, particularly on the cricket pitch block, throughout the day, presenting an unacceptable playing, operational and broadcast environment for all forms of cricket,” CA and CT say in their submission to the Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC).
The Macquarie Point Development Corporation had budgeted in its business case for revenue from one Test match and eight BBL games every year (Macquarie Point Multipurpose Stadium).
Bellerive Oval will remain the home of cricket.
Minster for all things stadium Eric Abetz needs to tell Tasmanians will the stadium have the roof the AFL wants? And if so, what does that mean for the stadium’s business case – what does it mean for cricket in Tassie?
Or is the government renegotiating the “non-negotiable” AFL deal and at the eleventh-hour designing roofs on the run.
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