The 1983 Motera marvel

The Narendra Modi Stadium at Motera. Pic/BCCI

As the world's largest cricket stadium, built at a staggering Rs 800 crore, hosted its first international match here on Wednesday, Mrugesh Jaykrishna, 77, was taken back to 1983 when Motera first hosted an international match.

The former BCCI vice-president played an instrumental role in ensuring Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) got its own stadium for international cricket. Before that, the GCA was forced to rent the Sardar Patel Stadium in the Navrangpura area here and the BCCI would always hesitate in allotting international matches to the state.

That's when Jaykrishna spoke to his GCA committee members and the construction of their own stadium began. In a record eight months and 13 days the Sardar Patel Stadium was erected and the first Test was played on November 12, 1983, between India and West Indies.

‘Humongous task'

"It was a humongous task. All big cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore had their own cricket stadiums built by their respective state associations. So, we were convinced that if Ahmedabad wanted to regularly host a Test or ODI, we'd have to build our own stadium," Jaykrishna told mid-day from his residence at Gandhinagar on Wednesday.

Mrugesh Jaikrishna

The septuagenarian prefers watching the third India v England Test, the first international match at the refurbished Narendra Modi Stadium, on his television at home to avoid exposing himself to the crowd due to COVID-19 situation.

Jaykrishna recalled the difficulties faced while building the Motera Stadium back then. "We never had the luxury of funds that cricket now enjoys. People were connected to cricket purely for the love of the sport. The GCA operated from a rented office. To organise a match at the municipal council-owned Navrangpura stadium, we had to please everyone. We were not given our own enclosure and there would be random demands for passes otherwise people would stop work. Finally, after numerous requests, the state government allotted us a land parcel in Motera. The ground was full of craters and to level it we had to pay around R40 lakh to the government. So, we planned to erect and sell around eight air-conditioned corporate boxes for Rs 5 lakh each. But there were no takers. Somehow, through our personal connections, we roped in a few corporate houses like Nirlon and Mafatlal among others, and raised the Rs 40 lakh to pay the government," recalled Jaykrishna.

Mrugesh Jaykrishna (left) with the former President of India Giani Zail Singh

No financial support

The next challenge was to build the stadium without any financial support from the government or the BCCI [as is the case currently where infrastructure subsidy is provided]. "We took bank loans on personal guarantees. We had around 1,900 workers working day and night to ensure the stadium was built in time because even a slight delay would cost us a lot. We invited top Indian cricketers like Polly Umrigar, Bishan Singh Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar to give us feedback on the ground and the facilities," said Jaykrishna.

Jaykrishna, who was the GCA president when the first match was played, copped flak due to an allegedly under-prepared wicket, but was happy to receive support from the legendary Vijay Merchant via a personal letter which he read out on his weekly show.

Incidentally, both, the old and new Motera stadiums, have been inaugurated by Presidents of India - Giani Zail Singh in 1983 and Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday.