Mumbai gets a state of the art and sparkling Wankhede

A site for the sore eyes not long ago a brand new and sparkling Wankhede Stadium awaits the cricketing fraternity from March 13 when New Zealand and Canada play a day match. Visitors to the `D’ Road venue at Churchgate where 21 Tests and 15 one-day internationals have been held since Clive Lloyd’s West Indies trounced India in the first Test played there, would be a proud lot; the complexion of the stadium has changed altogether. With the Mumbai Cricket Association taking up a major construction work in mid 2008, not a match has been played at the city’s third Test match venue (the others being Bombay Gymkhana and Brabourne Stadium).




A semi-final and final of the local tournament would be played coming Saturday and Sunday. Sudhir Naik, former Test cricketer who is in-charge of the pitch and ground, appeared a very pleased man on Wednesday. Andy Atkinson, the ICC’s pitch consultant who has been constantly monitoring work at the stadium expressed satisfaction on the preparation of the pitch and outfield in December itself.



Built at a cost of near about Rs. 300 crore, attention has been paid to the Vijay Manjrekar dressing rooms that have now been relocated above the height of the sight screen at the South end. The present dressing rooms are around 1000 sq ft each, bigger than the previous one, but a few officials feel that more space should have been provided. However, the teams will have the benefit of seeing the match from a long veranda. The dining area will be shared by the teams.



The area above the dressing rooms -- that has a seating capacity of 200 and a well appointed lounge -- has been reserved for the guests of ICC President, BCCI President, MCA President and the MCA Managing Committee. Media in-charge Vinod Deshpande said that this arrangement is only for the World Cup matches. “The MCA has reserved 340 seats for the Test and local Ranji Trophy players. This will be on the top tier and behind the wicket. The Test and Ranji Trophy cricketers will get about 600 seats for bilateral series matches,’’ said Deshpande.



A fully air-conditioned media enclosure with a capacity of 200 in the press box has been created at the North end of the stadium. The media enclosure has a separate media centre for reporters and photographers and also a conference room. The MCA has decided to buy a golf cart to transport the captains and other players from the dressing room to the conference hall below the press box for pre-match and post-match interviews.



The cantilevered roof with ample ventilation, ergonomic bucket seats, video-matrix scoreboards and other facilities at the stadium should make it a pleasant viewing for the spectators. There will be a manual score board, six matrix score boards and replay screens. The MCA has increased the corporate boxes to 57, although all of them are not likely to be sold for the World Cup matches.



Very soon the MCA will finalise the venue agreement with IPL franchise Mumbai Indians. But for the World Cup matches, the Garware Club, the five gymkhanas, 330 odd clubs and the ICC together will get close to 30,000 odd tickets. Only around 4000 tickets will be sold over the counter.



Because of the 30 metre cantilevered roof, shadow on the west side may lengthen up to the edge of the crease at around 4.25 P M. The day-night matches are not likely to be affected at all. Since the final is scheduled to be played here, every aspect of the pitch and outfield is being supervised by Atkinson.