It was a near 2km walk to the Motera Stadium. The roads were lined with policemen, tasked with keeping in check a massive, loud and growing crowd. Someone was selling Rohit Sharma-style floppy hats, and there were the familiar chants of ‘Indiaaa-India’ – it might have been any India cricket match anywhere in the country. Except it wasn’t.
Cricket’s newest stadium is its biggest ever, but the sport was the last thing on the mind of the two powerful world leaders who inaugurated it. Manoj Narayan takes a broad look at the symbolism in play behind the new Motera Stadium.
The huge hoardings at the entry gate, with the grinning photos of US president Donald Trump and India prime minister Narendra Modi, was the first indication that this whole spectacle had little to do with cricket. Even if the message read: “Welcome to the world’s biggest cricket stadium.”
The Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in the west of India, is now officially the biggest cricket venue in the world, with a capacity of 110,000. The stadium, which was first opened in 1982, was torn down in 2015 as the Gujarat Cricket Association, reportedly on Modi’s request, decided to rebuild it into the behemoth that is now. It looks posh and modern, and if filled to capacity, it will be a sight to behold. But can a Test match, or even an ODI, attract crowds of that scale anymore?
These are politically and socially troubled times for India. Earlier this week, there were riots in Delhi. The country has been tense since December, when the Modi government pushed a citizenship law and policy built on far-right ideology and described by constitutional experts as divisive along communal lines. The move was, and continues to be, met with widespread protests across the country.
Motera’s inauguration and Trump’s associated visit was set up to be a distraction from it all, a show of strength and popularity. Which is sad for Motera. The old ground has seen some of Indian cricket’s seminal moments: Sunil Gavaskar reached his landmark 10,000 Test runs here in 1986/87 against Pakistan, and in 1994 Kapil Dev went past Richard Hadlee as the leading Test wicket-taker with his 432nd scalp. In 2011, during the famous World Cup victory over Australia, it was here that Tendulkar crossed 18,000 runs in ODI cricket.
These are achievements the country can actually take pride in. The reopening of this famous venue was something a lot more hollow.
