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Wankhede at 50: the stadium’s evolution from indispensable to iconic

Jan 19, 2025 07:16 AM IST

The pride of place that the 50-year-old stadium holds in the city’s cricketing folklore continues to be felt as passionately by players and cricket lovers alike

Mumbai: Wankhede Stadium’s debut as an international cricket venue, when Clive Lloyd’s West Indies team landed on Mumbai shores in the winter of 1974-75, is steeped in anecdotal history: some famous (Lloyd’s magnificent unbeaten 242, for example), some rather infamous (a near match-ending crowd disturbance).

Wankhede at 50: the stadium’s evolution from indispensable to iconic PREMIUM
Wankhede at 50: the stadium’s evolution from indispensable to iconic

Yet, in all that emotional blur, there’s something that Vilas Godbole, the only living member of the then Bombay Cricket Association’s committee that decided to build the stadium, vividly remembers.

Back then, operating those old-fashioned manual scoreboards was a tedious, thankless task done by officials. The scoreboard for this Wankhede Test, placed on the rooftop of North Stand, had cricketers from the city man the numbers. Mind you, these were local players of some repute.

“The great Vijay Merchant, who was on air commentating, was amazed at how quickly and accurately the scoreboard was being operated,” Godbole recalls.

That manual scoreboard may have been replaced by jazzy electronic scoreboards, but the pride of place that Wankhede Stadium holds in the city’s cricketing folklore continues to be felt as passionately by players and cricket lovers alike. And, as the 33,500-capacity venue completes a landmark half-century this month — on January 23, 1975, the first ball in the India-West Indies Test was bowled — it has evolved from being indispensable to iconic, not just for Mumbai but Indian cricket.

It has seen record runs and magical spells. It has seen sweat, blood and fire. It has seen tears rolling down Sachin Tendulkar’s eyes in his farewell Test and MS Dhoni raising the collective mood of a nation with that six as India lifted the 50-over World Cup after 28 years. And, almost quintessentially Mumbai, it has seen redevelopment.

Karsan Ghavri sure has seen it all. The former India all-rounder was part of two landmark matches at the stadium — the first-ever first-class match (Mumbai vs Baroda) and the first-ever Test — that were played within a span of two months in 1974-75.

“Playing at this new venue gave you a different high,” Ghavri says. “We used to play on dusty fields. The new stadium looked like a billiards table. It felt as if I was playing in heaven.”

A slice of heaven that came into being more out of necessity and one man’s vision. Mumbai already had two Test venues—the Bombay Gymkhana and the Cricket Club of India-owned Brabourne Stadium, the latter barely metres away from the Wankhede. However, disputes with the CCI over various issues and the need to be economically self-sufficient compelled the BCA, under president Sheshrao Wankhede, to dream big and have its own stadium.

Rocky start to a dream

That dream took shape through 1974 and turned into reality in January 1975. It soon, however, woke up to a nightmare.

As Lloyd completed his double century, a fan ran towards the pitch to greet him. The police quickly dragged him out, only for rumours to spread that the man was beaten up. The irate crowd set the benches on fire, and spectators rushed towards the pitch. Sensing trouble, some BCA members and local cricketers, notably Waman Bhagwat and Dharod, ran from the pavilion to the pitch area and formed a human chain around it, says Godbole. “If not for their timely action, the match perhaps would’ve been abandoned,” he adds.

The match was halted, and the damage done still threatened a premature end to a historic debut match. Non-stop repair work through a sleepless night for people like Godbole meant when people flocked in at 9am the next day, “everything looked normal”.

In the years that followed, Wankhede Stadium stood witness to cricketing feats that defied the normal. Like that match-winning 123 from captain Sunil Gavaskar that floored the Aussies in 1979. Or India’s Golden Jubilee Test that served up an Ian Botham all-round special (the Englishman took 13 wickets and scored 114) in 1980. All this in front of packed benches.

“Remember, there was no proper TV back then. If you wanted to identify a player properly, you had to be at the stadium,” Ghavri says.

As cricket evolved from players donning white to coloured clothing and games shrinking from six-day Tests to one-day and three-hour affairs, so was the need for stadiums. In that sense, the 1996 World Cup, and the India-Australia contest in it, presented the first major challenge for Wankhede Stadium.

The dressing rooms had to be refurbished, and floodlights erected for the first day-night match at the stadium. The stadium, even then, stayed true to its penchant for a little chaos.

“About 15 days before the match, while erecting the floodlights, one of the parts of the cranes collapsed on the ground,” Ratnakar Shetty, among the longest-serving administrators of the Mumbai and Indian cricket board, recalls. “Somehow, with the help of horticulture experts, that area was covered with bits of grass. On match day, it didn’t look like there was a problem.”

The thrilling day-nighter lit up the Wankhede and the World Cup. “It was an experience,” says former Mumbai captain Milind Rege. “That day as the lights began to be lit up slowly, people looked up in amazement. It changed the way cricket was played.”

Revamp for the modern game

The 2011 ODI World Cup changed the look and feel of Wankhede Stadium entirely. With Mumbai picked to host the final, building a new, bigger stadium was considered. However, most concurred that keeping it at the Wankhede would be more fitting. And so, in 2008, the stadium’s revamp plan got going to make it more modern and spectator-friendly—installing bucket seats, for instance, in place of uncomfortable benches). “We felt the need to improve the facilities and make it more in sync with the shorter formats,” says Shetty.

That was also the thinking behind that now eminent roof, from which firecrackers dazzled the night sky after India beat Sri Lanka to become world champions in April 2011.

That World Cup final was Wankhede’s crowning moment, yet there were other sparkling on-field memories thereafter. Who can forget Tendulkar bidding adieu to international cricket at this very ground in 2013. Or Kevin Pietersen’s stunning assault on the Indian spinners in 2012. Or New Zealand spinner Ajaz Patel becoming only the third bowler in history to bag all 10 wickets in an innings in 2021.

The new-look Wankhede Stadium continues to dish out new tales of highs and lows, glory and heartbreak. But every time Godbole steps onto the stadium that many in Mumbai cricket call home, the manual scoreboard story springs back to mind.

“Wankhede may become all modern, but the stadium will always remain rich in history,” he says.

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