Ballia: Uttar Pradesh Sports Minister Narad Rai on Thursday charged the previous BSP regime with ruining the sporting culture in the State by setting up memorials and parks where stadiums earlier stood. Rai said the present SP government was working to restore the facilities and promote sports at the rural level. "Because of the wrong policies of BSP government, sports was in comatose. In Lucknow, a stadium was dismantled to set up a park, which damaged the image of Uttar Pradesh at the national and international level," Rai said on the occasion of inaugurating a state-level rural sports competition. "At that time, the only cricket stadium in the state where international matches were staged, Green park in Kanpur, had turned into ruins... The situation was such that Australia had refused to play there in 2009," Rai claimed. "The SP government, on the other hand, made the Green Park match-ready through hard work of three months and a one-day match was played there," he said. The minister emphasised on his government`s commitment to promote sports at the rural level, and said progress cannot be made unless proper facilities are provided. In this regard, Rai said that a government order has been issued for providing Gram Samaj land for sports ground in villages, where land consolidation is being undertaken.