CUTTACK: AS one turns right from Cantonment road towards the Stadium Road in Cuttack on Saturday evening, one is greeted by the sight of a long line of fans waiting to enter the Barabati Stadium. As one gets closer to the venue gates, the crowd gets larger. In fact, every road in the quaint but historic city on the banks of Mahanadi River leads to the Barabati Stadium this weekend with banners and decorations lighting up the city for the second ODI between India and England on Sunday.
The cricket carnival has well and truly arrived in Cuttack. The fans who have been waiting to enter slowly fill up the stands on the eastern side. They are here to watch the stars of Indian cricket team train. Every movement of players like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli received loud cheers as the crowd was allowed on the other side of the stands after one side got full.
The excitement is understandable. The fans don’t get to see the India team that often. This historic stadium, not in the lines of Mumbai, Kolkata, Kanpur or Chennai (historically), used to hosts international matches more regularly. It was on the fixture during the two World Cups India hosted before turn of the century. Slowly with more venues with modern facilities coming up in the country, the number of matches dried up. The last ODI played at this venue was in 2019. India played a T20I against South Africa in June 2022 but the Barabati Stadium doesn’t hold the significance it did among the venues across India.
Owned and operated by the Orissa Olympic Association (OOA), it is one of the oldest sporting venues in the country. It dates back to 1961 when Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) played East Zone in a first-class match. The stadium went on to host only the third ODI played in India in 1982, followed by its first Test match when India played Sri Lanka in 1987.
Former India head coach and captain Ravi Shastri vividly remembers the match against England in 1984. K Srikkanth fell on 99 but Shastri went to become the first player to score an international hundred at the venue. “How can I forget that memory?” Shastri recalls on the sidelines of an event in Cuttack on Saturday. “That is the most memorable one. I think it was a 9 o'clock start. I opened with K Srikkanth. He got out on 99. But I got that hundred,”
From thereon till early 2000s, the stadium was one of the regular venues in India as it hosted the 1987 and 1996 World Cup games. However as years went by, the stadium went down in the pecking order. It hasn’t hosted a Test match in 20 years but ODIs and T20Is are played based on the rotational policy that is put in place by the BCCI.
Pankaj Lochan Mohanty, acting president of Odisha Cricket Association, believes that the stadium needs a major upgrade to take it to the next level. “It was supposed to get renovated, this is a very old stadium. We have all the facilities, have made partial renovations as you can see. We have been in talks with the government,” Mohanty told this daily.
With the government changing in 2024, the OCA is continuing their talks with the new government for support. “Without government funding, we cannot do a complete overhaul,” Mohanty explains. “BCCI will support with their infrastructure fund, but we need government support. The new government, they are also keen to develop. They wanted to build another stadium. As there are so many stadiums now, we are getting matches once every two years. So, this stadium will go to waste (if a new cricket stadium is built). So, we told them that whatever facility they want to build, it could be done for other sports while redeveloping this stadium for cricket. It will be renovated. The government will help us to renovate and make it a vibrant stadium again,” he added.
Meanwhile, out in the middle, Kohli and Rohit were having a hit in the nets with every shot of them being cheered by 20,000-plus fans who had come to watch them train. Any player who walked along the boundary ropes were being cheered on as everyone remained on their feet as the India players and coaching staff went through their proceedings in what seemed like an optional training session.
While only time will tell when and how Barabati stadium gets its much-needed overhaul, expect the atmosphere on Sunday to be crazier than what it was on Saturday. For, Cuttack, and the entire of Odisha, will come together and fill the stadium to the brim to watch and cheer for their cricketing heroes.