M. A. Chidambaram Stadium
Encyclopedia
The M. A. Chidambaram Stadium is a cricket stadium in Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...

 (formerly Madras), India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, named after M. A. Chidambaram
M. A. Chidambaram
Muttaiya Annamalai Chidambaram was an Indian industrialist and cricket administrator. He was the youngest son of Sir Annamalai Chettiar.-Early life:...

, the former President of BCCI
Board of Control for Cricket in India
The Board of Control for Cricket in India , headquartered at Mumbai, is the national governing body for all cricket in India. It's not the apex governing body in India. The board was formed in December 1928 as BCCI replaced Calcutta Cricket Club. BCCI is a society, registered under the Tamil Nadu...

 and the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association. The stadium was formerly known as Madras Cricket Club Ground or Chepauk Stadium. Commonly known as Chepauk
Chepauk
Chepauk is a locality in Chennai , in India. The name Chepauk is popularly used to refer to the M. A. Chidambaram International Cricket Stadium also known as Chepauk Stadium. It is also home to the Chepauk palace, built in the Indo-Saracenic style...

, its first match was played 10 February 1934. Built by the East Coast Constructions and Industries, this stadium is where the Indian cricket team
Indian cricket team
The Indian cricket team is the national cricket team of India. Governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India , it is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and One Day International status....

 won its first ever Test victory
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 in 1952 against England
English cricket team
The England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...

. Sunil Gavaskar notched up his record breaking 30th Test hundred on this ground in 1983-84. The India-Australia encounter in 1986-87 ended in a tie - only the second in the game's long history. The next season, leg spinner Narendra Hirwani claimed the best match analysis by a player on Test debut, finishing with 16 for 136. The Chepauk crowd is known to be amongst the most appreciative in the country. This was proved when those present gave a standing ovation to Saeed Anwar after his record breaking 194 against India in the Independence Cup match in 1997 and again when Pakistan won a Test match in 1999. A truly overwhelmed Pakistani team even made a lap of honour in appreciation of the spectators' sporting behaviour. It is the home ground of the Tamil Nadu cricket team
Tamil Nadu cricket team
The Tamil Nadu Cricket Team ; , competes in the Super League of the Ranji Trophy, the top cricketing competition in India. The team finished as runners-up behind Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy in the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons establishing themselves as one of the strongest teams in the country...

 and also for the Chennai Super Kings
Chennai Super Kings
Chennai Super Kings is a franchise cricket team based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu that plays in the Indian Premier League. Founded in 2008, the team is currently captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coached by Stephen Fleming, a former New Zealand cricketer. The team's home ground is the M. A...

 which participate and won the Indian Premier League
Indian Premier League
The Indian Premier League is a professional league for Twenty20 cricket competition in India. It was initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India , headquartered in Mumbai, and is supervised by BCCI Vice President Rajeev Shukla, who serves as the league's Chairman and Commissioner...

 two times.

Location

The stadium is located at Chepauk
Chepauk
Chepauk is a locality in Chennai , in India. The name Chepauk is popularly used to refer to the M. A. Chidambaram International Cricket Stadium also known as Chepauk Stadium. It is also home to the Chepauk palace, built in the Indo-Saracenic style...

, a few hundred meters from the seashore. The stadium is surrounded by major streets, namely, Wallajah Road, Bells Road and Pycrofts Road in the north, west and south, respectively. The nearest railway station is the Chepauk MRTS railway station which lies immediately next to the stadium in the eastern side. Incidentally, a major portion of the stadium is visible from the elevated railway station. The stadium is surrounded by several stately buildings, such as the Chepauk Palace, the University of Madras
University of Madras
The University of Madras is a public research university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the three oldest universities in India...

–Marina Campus, and the newly built Legislative Assembly building at the Omandurar Government Estate. The Buckingham Canal
Buckingham Canal
The Buckingham Canal is a long fresh water navigation canal, running parallel to the Coromandel Coast of South India from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh to Villupuram District in Tamil Nadu. The canal connects most of the natural backwaters along the coast to the port of Chennai...

 runs tangentially to the northeastern side of the stadium.

Ground Facts and Figures

  • The first-ever Ranji Trophy match was played here, in which AG Ram Singh took 11 wickets on a sticky to bowl Madras to a win over Mysore within a day.
  • India recorded its first Test win here, in 1951-52, when it defeated England by an innings and eight runs.
  • The second tied Test in cricket's history was also played here, between India and Australia in 1986.
  • Virender Sehwag
    Virender Sehwag
    Virender Sehwag , affectionately known as Viru, the Nawab of Najafgarh, or the Zen master of modern cricket, is one of the leading batsmen in the Indian cricket team. Sehwag is an aggressive right-handed opening batsman and a part-time right-arm off-spin bowler...

    's 319 against South Africa is the highest test score at the ground.
  • This stadium played host to the second tied-test
    Tied Test
    Tied Test refers to a rare result in Test cricket. Only two ties have occurred in the 2,000 Tests played since 1877. The first was in 1960 and the second in 1986...

     in the history of Test cricket.
  • Saeed Anwar
    Saeed Anwar
    Saeed Anwar is a former Pakistani opening batsman. A left-hander, Anwar is most notable for scoring 194 runs against India in Chennai in 1997, then the highest, and now the joint second highest individual score in a One Day International.-Personal life:...

    's 194 against India is the highest score on this ground. This was also the highest score in ODI's until Sachin Tendulkar reached the 200 landmark against South Africa.
  • England hold the record for the highest score on the ground so far when they hit 652-7d runs against India.Incidentally, this also became the fourth highest in Test match history. The next highest score is by India who were all out for 627 runs against South Africa in 2008. The third highest is West Indies who were all out for 582 in 1949 against India in Tests.
  • The Indians hold the record for the lowest score at the ground when England restricted them to just 83.
  • Narendra Hirwani
    Narendra Hirwani
    Narendra Deepchand Hirwani is a leg spin bowler who played for India. He is mainly remembered for his outstanding success on his Test debut.-Early days:...

    's match bowling figures of 16/136 currently are the best at the ground.
  • Rahul Dravid
    Rahul Dravid
    Rahul Sharad Dravid , is a cricketer in the Indian national team, of which he has been a regular member since 1996. He was appointed as the captain of the Indian cricket team in October 2005 and resigned from the post in September 2007. Dravid was honoured as one of the top-five Wisden Cricketers...

     scored his 10,000th Test
    Test cricket
    Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

     run on this ground.
  • India's 387/4 in the fourth innings of the first Test against England in December 2008, became the highest successful run chase in India.
  • Sunil Gavaskar
    Sunil Gavaskar
    Sunil Manohar "Sunny" Gavaskar is a former cricketer who played during the 1970s and 1980s for Bombay and India. Widely regarded as one of the greatest opening batsmen in cricket history, Gavaskar set world records during his career for the most Test runs and most Test centuries scored by any...

    (1018 runs) had scored the most number of runs in this stadium followed by Sachin Tendulkar(876 runs) and Gundappa Vishwanath(785 runs) in Tests.
  • Anil Kumble
    Anil Kumble
    Anil Kumble is a former Indian cricketer and captain of the Indian Test cricket team. He is a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-hand batsman. He is currently the leading wicket-taker for India in both Test and One Day International matches...

     (48 wickets) had taken the most wickets in this stadium followed by Kapil Dev
    Kapil Dev
    Kapil Dev Ramlal Nikhanj , better known as Kapil Dev, is a former Indian cricketer. He captained the Indian cricket team which won the 1983 Cricket World Cup...

    (40 wickets) and Harbhajan Singh
    Harbhajan Singh
    Harbhajan Singh Plaha , commonly known as Harbhajan Singh, is an Indian cricketer. A specialist bowler, he has the second-highest number of Test wickets by an off spinner, behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan....

    (39 wickets) in Tests.

  • It was in Chepauk, that Sachin Tendulkar
    Sachin Tendulkar
    Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket...

     scored his first century in the fourth innings in a winning cause for India.
  • Sachin Tendulkar has scored more runs in Chepauk - 876 in nine Tests at an average of 87.60 - than any other venue in India.
  • On 15 October 2004 Shane Warne
    Shane Warne
    Shane Keith Warne is a former Australian international cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected in the quintet...

     surpassed Muttiah Muralitharan
    Muttiah Muralitharan
    Muttiah Muralitharan , often referred to as Murali, is a former Sri Lankan cricketer who was rated the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 2002...

    's tally of 532 Test wickets when he took the wicket of Irfan Pathan
    Irfan Pathan
    Irfan Pathan is an Indian cricketer who made his debut for India in late-2003 and was a core member of the national team until a decline in form set in during 2006, forcing him out of the team...

    . It was his 533rd Test wicket taken in his 114th Test.
  • On 22 March 2001 India
    India
    India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

     defeated Australia
    Australia
    Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

     by 2 wickets to clinch the Border
    Border
    Borders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and...

    -Gavaskar trophy after losing it to Australia in 1999-2000 series. A match winning century by Sachin Tendulkar
    Sachin Tendulkar
    Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket...

     and a record of 32 wickets in the Test series by Harbhajan Singh
    Harbhajan Singh
    Harbhajan Singh Plaha , commonly known as Harbhajan Singh, is an Indian cricketer. A specialist bowler, he has the second-highest number of Test wickets by an off spinner, behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan....

     helped India to end the winning streak of Australia
    Australia
    Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

     consecutively followed by an epic Kolkata
    Kolkata
    Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

     test.Australia
    Australia
    Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

     won 16 tests in succession.
  • The highest ODI score here was made by Pakistan in 1997, where Saeed Anwar scored 194 runs. Pakistan scored 327-5, India replied with 292 all out, which is the second highest score here. The third highest score is 289-4 made by Australia against New Zealand
    New Zealand cricket team
    The New Zealand cricket team, nicknamed the Black Caps, are the national cricket team representing New Zealand. They played their first in 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. It took the team until 1955–56 to win a Test, against the...

     .
  • Yuvraj Singh
    Yuvraj Singh
    Yuvraj Singh Bhandal is an Indian cricketer, and the son of former Indian fast bowler and Punjabi movie star Yograj Singh. He has been a member of the Indian cricket team since 2000 and played his first Test match in 2003. He was the vice captain of the ODI team from late-2007 to late-2008...

     has scored the most number of runs here with 255 runs in ODIs. He is followed by Geoff Marsh
    Geoff Marsh
    Geoffrey Robert Marsh is a former Australian cricketer, coach and selector. He played 50 Test matches and over 100 One Day Internationals for Australia as an opening batsman...

    (246 runs) and Saeed Anwar(194 runs).
  • Mohammad Rafique
    Mohammad Rafique
    Mohammed Rafique is a Bangladeshi cricketer. He is the leading wicket-taker for Bangladesh in Test matches.-International career:...

     has taken the most number of wickets(14 wickets), followed by Ajit Agarkar
    Ajit Agarkar
    Ajit Bhalchandra Agarkar is an Indian international cricketer, who has been on the fringes of the Indian side in both tests and one day matches since his debut in 1998...

     and Morne Morkel
    Morne Morkel
    Morné Morkel is a cricketer who plays Test and limited overs cricket for South Africa. He is a right-arm fast bowler with "genuine pace" according to former South African fast bowler Allan Donald, and a useful lower order left-handed batsman. Some believe he has the ability to become a genuine...

    (7 wickets each).
  • Sachin Tendulkar has scored the most centuries at chepauk hitting 5 centuries

2010 Major Renovation

On 28 June 2009, decision to start reconstruction work for setting up state-of-art facilities and an increased spectator capacity of 45,000 over the existing 36,000 was taken, the cost of which is Rs 175 crore. The project comprises three new reinforced concrete stands accommodating 10,000 spectators and 24 hospitality boxes under translucent PTFE membrane roofs.

Natraj & Venkat Architects (NVA) in Chennai and Hopkins Architects
Hopkins Architects
Hopkins Architects Partnership LLP is a prominent British architectural firm established in 1976 by Sir Michael and Lady Patricia Hopkins. The practice has won many awards for its work and has twice been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, including in 2011 for the 2012 London Velodrome and in...

 in London, have been contracted by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association
Tamil Nadu Cricket Association
Tamil Nadu Cricket Association is the governing body of the Cricket activities in the Tamil Nadu state of India and the Tamil Nadu cricket team...

 to upgrade the stadium before the 2011 ICC World Cup and bring the swing back, for which the stadium is notable,
  • covering and area of 40,000 m2;
  • increasing the existing capacity to 50,000;
  • translucent fabric roof structures for shade over the stands;
  • providing additional corporate boxes and airconditioned accommodation;
  • horizontal gap between the lower terrace and the upper stands to allow the sea breeze into the stadium from the east.


The stadium will cost around 1,920 million when work is fully complete, planned in four phases. Huge pillars that often blocked the view in the old stadium have been replaced by the light state-of-the-art roof called Quad Conical Geometric Form which is held together by cables imported from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. The designer was Bird Air, an American firm, while engineers from Australia (from Tyio Membrane) have carried out the installation work. The stadium can accommodate 38,000 spectators. This will increase to 42,000 once work at the TNCA pavilion and the MCC stand is over. The stadium sports as many as nine new stands. These consist of three tiers with the middle one, fully air-conditioned, being the hospitality box. The media box can seat 200 presspersons. The media conference hall can accommodate around 300 persons. The stands are at a gradient of 36 degrees, which is not too steep by international standards. The renovation lets the sea breeze in to get the ground's traditional swing back - all this while adhering to the principles of vaastu, and Indian form of feng shui, in design. The plan is to create a series of 12 stands atop a lower bowl of terracing, so the breeze can flow through the horizontal gap between the terrace and the stands.

Cricket World Cup

This stadium has hosted One Day International (ODI) matches every time India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 has hosted the Cricket World Cup
Cricket World Cup
The ICC Cricket World Cup is the premier international championship of men's One Day International cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council , with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a finals tournament which is held every four years...

. The World cup matches hosted by this stadium are as follows:

1987 Cricket World Cup

1996 Cricket World Cup

2011 Cricket World Cup

See also


External links

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