Narendra Modi Stadium

1982–2006 (Early years)

Formerly known as the Gujarat Stadium, the ground was renamed in tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,^{[citation needed]} India's first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. Before the Sardar Patel Stadium, international cricket matches in the city were played at the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's stadium of the same name (Sardar Patel Stadium) in the Navrangpura area. In 1982, the Government of Gujarat donated a 400,000-square-metre (100-acre) stretch of land on the banks of the Sabarmati River to build a new stadium. The construction of the Sardar Patel Stadium was completed in nine months. Since then, all International cricket fixtures for the city are hosted here. In the 1984-85 Australia India series, Sardar Patel Stadium hosted its first ODI, in which India was lost.

At the arena Sunil Gavaskar became the first ever batter to score 10,000 runs in the Test cricket, he did the feat against Pakistan in their 1987 tour. In 1983, Kapil Dev took a nine-wicket haul against the West Indies in 1983, and claimed his 432nd Test wicket at the stadium to become the highest wicket-taker in the world in 1995, which broke Sir Richard Hadlee's previous record. In 1996, the ground hosted a low-scoring Test match against South Africa, where the visitors lost 105–170. Javagal Srinath took six wickets in the fourth inning of the match. South Africa won in a rematch game when they bowled India out for 76 runs in the first session of the Test match in 2008 and won the game by an inning and 90 runs.

2006–2015

The stadium became a focal venue of ICC Champions Trophy in 2006 and hosted five of the 15 games played. In order to host the tournament, the stadium was renovated to add three new pitches and a new outfield. Floodlights and covered stands were introduced at the stadium as a part of the renovation program.

The Sardar Patel Stadium has hosted games whenever India has hosted the Cricket World Cup, including the first match of the 1996 World Cup between England and New Zealand. However, while the stadium hosted only one game each in 1987 and 1996, it hosted three games in the 2011 World Cup, including the quarter-finals between Australia and India. Sachin Tendulkar became the first cricketer to score 18,000 runs in One Day Internationals. As of 19 August 2017, Sardar Patel has hosted 12 Tests, 23 ODIs and 1 T20I.^{[citation needed]}

2015–2020 (construction of new stadium)

In October 2015, the stadium was demolished for reconstruction, though some media referred to it as a renovation. The total cost of reconstruction was estimated to be ₹700 crores (₹7 billion (US$88 million)). However, the final cost was reported at ₹800 crore (US$100 million). The redevelopment, originally planned to be completed in 2019, finished in February 2020.

Conception

The idea to build the new stadium was reportedly proposed by Narendra Modi, the president of the Gujarat Cricket Association and the Chief Minister of Gujarat at the time. Shortly before Modi moved to Delhi after becoming the Prime Minister of India, there were discussions about minor upgrades to the stadium and development of the structure at the pavilion end. Modi asked the officials to build a new larger stadium instead of minor renovation work.

Bids

After starting demolition work at the end of 2015, the GCA issued a request for tender on 1 January 2016 in The Times of India and The Indian Express newspapers. Nine bidders showed interest and purchased the tender documents, out of which three submitted Technical and Financial bids on time; they were the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Nagarjuna Construction Company, and Larsen & Toubro. A Tender Commercial Committee (TCC) of nine experts was formed to evaluate tenders. Additionally, STUP Consultants, a Civil Engineering consultancy firm based in Mumbai, was appointed as the Project Management Consultant to evaluate proposals and technical details of each bid working with the TCC.

Each of the three bidders presented their designs, models, and technical details of their concepts & designs. Because of the sheer size and complexity of the project, the bidders were evaluated on multiple parameters like efficiency, resources, the time frame of completion, ease of implementation etc. The bidders were ranked and weighted on all of the parameters.^{[citation needed]}

In the end, L&T was finalized as the Principal Contractor to build and design the stadium.

Building work

L&T took over the construction work of the stadium in December 2016. On 16 January 2017, the Gujarat Cricket Association oversaw the project, which formally began on the same day. The stadium was planned to be finished in 2 years and the reconstruction project was estimated to cost around ₹700 crore ($93 million). Finishing touches were given to the stadium in February 2020 and it hosted an England-India day-night test match in 2021.

Mumbai-based Commercial Kitchen Consultants "Span Asia" were hired to work with Populous and L&T on all the F&B Related areas such as the Concession Counters, Main Stadium Kitchens, Player Kitchens, VIP/VVIP Boxes, Corporate Boxes, Press & Media Boxes, Pantries, GCA Club and Related areas.

2020–present

PM Modi inaugurated 2022 national games in the arena. In 2020 "Namaste Trump" event organised there for president of the United States Donald Trump. The new stadium hosted its first Test match (England vs India), it was also its first ever Day-night test. It became home ground of IPL team Gujrat Titan The venue hosted 2022 and 2023 IPL finals.

The Narendra Modi stadium has two tier structure. The arena built on 63 acres of land, it has 3 entry point, with a metro line at one of the entry points. It has 76 corporate boxes that can hold 25 persons each, a 55-room clubhouse, an Olympic size swimming pool, and four dressing rooms. A unique feature of the stadium is its LED light system on the roof, instead of the usual floodlights towers which one can see at cricket stadiums around the world. The LED lights are installed on an antibacterial, fireproof canopy with PTFE membrane that covers 30 metres (98 ft) out of 55 metres (180 ft) width of sitting area. The roof was installed by Walter P Moore firm, they specifically designed it to be lightweight and separate from the seating bowls in order to make it fairly earthquake resistant. Larsen and Toubro was the main building contractor of the arena, they worked in collaboration with foreign firms from Australia, Japan, Spain, United States and Italy. They assigned Australia's Populous company to design the stadium, their architect Andrew James designed the Narendra Modi stadium. The firm is notable for designing iconic Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The two tier structure of the Narendra Modi stadium is supported from beneath by numerous huge "Y shape columns"; which eliminates the need for pillars inside the arena and thus gives spectators an unobstructed view of the entire field from any place in the Stadium. Each "Y shape" column's weight is 280 tonnes they are about 30 meter tall, they was Precasted in huge moulds and assembled on the stadium building site, later many precasted parts was installed in this way. The fabric of the roof is imported from Japan, the LED lighting installed by a Spain based firm, Italy's a firm installed cables on which Japan's company fitted roof fabric. The ground have 11 centre pitches, playing field has sensors to detect the need of water for grass, which can automatically activate 67 fully automated underground pop-up sprinklers. The ground has Bermuda grass surface, its seeds was purchased from USA and the stadium has high-tech drainage system and 360° letest LED lights system, which fitted at a ring on the inside edge of the roof, thus shadows don't form on the ground.

The stadium premises has many facilities, it have an indoor cricket practice area, badminton and tennis courts, a Squash, table tennis area, 3D projector theater and three practice grounds^{[dubious – discuss]} and 50 rooms. The parking lot can accommodate 3,000 cars and 10,000 two-wheelers. It has a huge ramp designed to facilitate the movement of around 60,000 people simultaneously. The arena has been designed in such a way that, patrons can fill the lower tier of the stadium for smaller events to maintain the crowd atmosphere when not at full capacity.

There was a plan that the stadium would be connected to the nearest metro station by a skywalk bridge in order to decrease road congestion, it was said that it would complete after September 2020, it was part of the Motera Metro Station project rather than the stadium's.^{[needs update]}

The arena is scheduled to host 6 matches of ICC World Cup 2023, including the first and the final game, high-profile India v Pakistan and Australia vs England games.

Namaste Trump

In 2020, the stadium was the venue of the "Namaste Trump event", which was organised for maiden visit of President Trump by Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi. The event mirrored the "Howdy Modi" event held in Houston, Texas.

75 years of Friendship through Cricket Event

The stadium was the venue for the fourth test match of the Border Gavaskar trophy, In 2023 Australia tour of India, where the Indian PM Narendra Modi and Australian PM Anthony Albanese participated in an event to celebrate 75 years of diplomatic and cricket relations between both the nations.

Erstwhile Sardar Patel Stadium had hosted matches of ICC world cups :

1987 Cricket World Cup

26 October 1987

Zimbabwe  191/7 (50 overs)	v	India 194/3 (42 overs)
Kevin Arnott 60(126) Chetan Sharma 41/2 Kapil Dev 44/2		Navjot Sidhu 55(61) PW Rawson 46/2

India won by 7 wickets Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad Umpires: David Archer and Dickie Bird Player of the match: Kapil Dev

• India won the toss and elected to field

1996 Cricket World Cup

14 February 1996

New Zealand  239/6 (50 overs)	v	England 228/9 (50 overs)
Nathan Astle 101(132) Graeme Hick 45/2		Graeme Hick 85(102) Dion Nash 26/3

New Zealand won by 11 runs Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad Umpires: B. C. Cooray and Steve Randell Player of the match: Nathan Astle

• England won the toss and elected to field

2011 Cricket World Cup

21 February 2011 (D/N)

Australia  262/6 (50 overs)	v	Zimbabwe 171 (46.2 overs)
Shane Watson 79(92) Christopher Mpofu 58/2		Graeme Cremer 37(51) Mitchell Johnson 19/4

Australia won by 91 runs Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad Attendance: 18,569 Umpires: Richard Kettleborough and Asoka de Silva Player of the match: Shane Watson

• Australia won the toss and elected to bat

4 March 2011 (D/N)

Zimbabwe  162 (46.2 overs)	v	New Zealand 166/0 (33.3 overs)
Brendan Taylor 44(57) Tim Southee 29/3		Martin Guptill 86*(108) Brendon McCullum 76*(95)

New Zealand won by 10 wickets Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad Attendance: 7,000 Umpires: Aleem Dar and Marais Erasmus Player of the match: Martin Guptill

• Zimbabwe won the toss and chose to bat first

24 March 2011 (D/N)

Australia  260/6 (50 overs)	v	India 261/5 (47.4 overs)
Ricky Ponting 104(118) Yuvraj Singh 44/2		Yuvraj Singh 57*(65) Sachin Tendulkar 53(68) David Hussey 19/1

India won by 5 wickets Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad Attendance: 51,000 Umpires: Ian Gould and Marais Erasmus Player of the match: Yuvraj Singh

• Australia won the toss and chose to bat first
• Sachin Tendulkar completed 18,000 runs in his ODI career in the match.

In previous arena

• Sunil Gavaskar completed 10,000 runs in Test cricket in 1986–87 against Pakistan.
• Kapil Dev, who had taken 9 wickets in an innings in the first match on this ground, taking his 432nd wicket in Test cricket to pass Sir Richard Hadlee's record in 1994.
• In October 1999, Sachin Tendulkar scored his first Test Match double-hundred in a match against New Zealand.^{[citation needed]}
• On 16 November 2009, Tendulkar crossed landmark of thirty thousand runs and 20 years in international level.^{[citation needed]}
• Tendulkar became the first-ever cricketer to score 18,000 runs in ODI format in a match against Australia during 2011 Cricket World Cup.^{[citation needed]}
• In 2008, AB de Villiers scored his maiden test double century.^{[citation needed]}

In present arena

• The arena hosted its first ever day night test game between India-England on 24 Feb 2021.
• IPL 2022 Final between the Gujarat Titans and the Rajasthan Royals. Titans won the IPL in their inaugural season. This event was attended by 104,859 people, the highest in the history of cricket and of the stadium.
• IPL 2023 Final between the Titans and Chennai Super Kings. In his 250th IPL match, MS Dhoni captained CSK to their fifth IPL victory, tying Mumbai Indians for the record of most IPL trophies.

Test match records

• Highest innings total: Sri Lanka 760/7d – India v Sri Lanka, 2nd inning, 16 November 2009
• Lowest innings total: India 76 – India v South Africa, 1st inning, 3 April 2008
• Highest individual score: Mahela Jayawardene 275 (435) (4s-27 6s-1) – Sri Lanka v India, 16 November 2009
• Best bowling:
  (in an innings) Kapil Dev 9/83 – India v West Indies, 12 November 1983
  (in a match) Axar Patel 11/70 – India v England, 13 February 2021
• Most runs: Rahul Dravid (India) 771 Runs (Mat:7 Inn: 14 HS: 222 Ave: 59.30 SR: 49.10 100s-3 50s-1), Sachin Tendulkar – 642 runs, VVS Laxman – 574 runs
• Most wickets: Anil Kumble (India) 36 Wickets (Mat:7 Runs:964 BBI:7/115 BBM: 10/233 Ave:26.77 Econ: 2.29 SR: 70.1 5W/I: 3 10W/M:1), Harbhajan Singh- 29 wickets, Kapil Dev – 14 wickets

One Day International match records

• Highest total: South Africa 365/2 – India v South Africa, 1st innings, 27 February 2010
• Lowest total: Zimbabwe 85 – Zimbabwe v West Indies, 1st innings, 8 October 2006
• Highest individual score: Sourav Ganguly 144 (Balls:152 4x8 6x6) – India v Zimbabwe, 5 December 2000
• Best bowling: Mitchell Johnson 4/19 (9.2 overs) – Australia v Zimbabwe, 21 February 2011
• Most runs: Chris Gayle – 316 runs, Sachin Tendulkar – 215 runs
• Most wickets: Kapil Dev (India) 10 Wickets (Mat:6 Runs:156 Best:3/26 Ave:15.60 Econ:3.04), Lasith Malinga – 7 wickets, Chris Gayle- 6 wickets

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  The Stadium During the Namaste Trump Event (new structure)

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  Iron Bull at the Stadium entrance

• In 2021, the stadium was featured in an episode of History TV18's documentry show Modern Marvels. The episode depicted the entire construction of the stadium.

• Cricket in India
• Sport in India
• Sports in Gujarat