A 1,11,000 seater cricket stadium, like no other in the world, saw cricketers from India and England gushing about the facilities provided here, ever since they landed in Ahmedabad last week.
But even before the toss on Wednesday, 24 February, the venue of the third Test officially changed from Sardar Patel Stadium to Narendra Modi Stadium.
President Ram Nath Kovind along with Amit Shah presided over the re-opening ceremony of the arena and announced that the world’s biggest cricket stadium would now be named after the man whose brainchild it was — Narendra Modi.
“Today marks the naming ceremony of the Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium and the inauguration of the land worship ceremony of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave. The decision to make such a stadium with world class facilities happened when the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the CM of Gujarat. At that time, he was also the director of the Gujarat Cricket Association,” said the President while speaking on the podium.
While the cricket stadium has been named after the Prime Minister, Sardar Patel, after whom the stadium was originally named also sees his legacy carry on, as the entire sports arena will now be named after him — the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave.
Among the facilities that are set to be included in the enclave, in addition to the cricket stadium, is a multi-purpose stadium for athletics and football, a hockey stadium, and outdoor practice fields. The enclave is also slated to include a host of indoor facilities, including a swimming pool and velodrome along with facilities for beach volleyball and a boating centre.
The Narendra Modi Stadium surpasses the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Australia as the world's largest cricket stadium. The MCG has a maximum seating capacity of 1,00,024. It is also the second largest stadium in the world overall, behind Rungrado 1st of May stadium in Pyonyang, North Korea, which has an estimated capacity of nearly 1,15,000.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)