It is heartening to note that M. A. Stadium in Jammu is going to be transformed into a cricket stadium of international standards. Hopefully, people of the State – in particular Jammu cricket lovers, can expect matches, both test and of one day duration to be played between India and other countries keeping in view when places like Kanpur can host test matches, why not our state.
The project of reconstruction and renovation of this stadium is under Prime Minister’s Special Package of Development for Jammu and Kashmir involving a cost of Rs.50 crore and National Projects Construction Corporation (NPCC) is supervising and monitoring the construction work.
While we hope this stadium in the city of temples would be at par in standard and infrastructural facilities like Eden Gardens in West Bengal, Raipur Cricket Stadium Chhattisgarh, Green Park Kanpur, Brabourne Stadium Mumbai etc, at the same time, it will open lot of opportunities for the existing and emerging cricket talent in the state. That expectation is further buttressed by the fact that weather conditions almost for whole of the year are conducive for playing first class cricket in Jammu, should this stadium be raised on expected lines.
The planning, design, structure, seating capacity and galleries, quality of pitch, flood lights etc of M .A .Stadium, Jammu hopefully must be such so as to compete on international norms. It should not be like Bakhshi Stadium Srinagar built long back primarily for hosting first class cricket matches but was later found incongruent to the requirements of playing cricket matches. This Jammu stadium will hopefully thus provide standard infrastructural facilities to the upbringing cricketers to emerge at the top levels both at the State and at National level. It is also expected that the time frame of the completion of this stadium will be adhered to so that it gets completed by early next year.
However, other games played in this multipurpose stadium must not suffer under the overwhelming cricket and training to budding players from professional coaches should not suffer and it is reported that due care is going to be taken in this regard by shifting such games to newly constructed Indoor Hall which was going to be further upgraded.
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