Raipur International Cricket Stadium is the second largest cricket stadium after Eden Garden cricket stadium (Kolkata) and fourth-largest cricket stadium in the world. It is also known as Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium. The total seating capacity of this ground is 65,000 and it was opened for public in the year 2008.
Location of Raipur International Cricket Stadium
Raipur International Cricket Stadium is located in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. It is situated close to the Swami Vivekananda Airport in Naya Raipur and is 21 kilometres away from Raipur main city. The ground is located at the National Highway 6.
Construction of Raipur International Cricket Stadium
The construction of the Raipur International Cricket Stadium began in the year 2001 and it was completed in a couple of years. It was built and owned by the Government of Chhattisgarh and the stadium has been built with up-to-the-minute sports stadium. The media facilities have been rebuilt, the business boxes are luxurious, and the roofs cover the rest of the ground to give comfort from high temperature.
Matches of Raipur International Cricket Stadium
Raipur International Cricket Stadium hosted its first ever match in 2010. When the Canada national cricket team landed in India and played a practice match against the Chhattisgarh state team. In 2013, the stadium was stated as a second host place for Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and hosted two of its matches. The First International Standard cricket match was played between Canadian national cricket team and the Chhattisgarh cricket team, the game was a One Day match, played on 21st November 2010. It also hosted a Half-Marathon on 16th December 2012 to mark Vijay Diwas. Sunil Gavaskar had rated this stadium to one of the best stadiums in the country and had proposed to utilize it for all types of matches.
Raipur was allotted two IPL games in January after the chief minister, the owners of the Daredevils franchise, to host some of their home matches there. In February the state`s public works department swung into action to spruce up the ground in time. On 28th April 2013, the first IPL match between Delhi Daredevils and Pune Warriors was played; in which Daredevils beat the Warriors by 15 runs and with this it became the 19th venue to host any IPL match. The second match was played on 1st May 2013, between Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders. Few matches of the 2014 Indian Premier League had to take place at the stadium but could not take place due to rescheduling of the matches due to general elections. Stadium has also hosted eight T20 matches of the 2014 Champions League Twenty20.
Raipur International Cricket Stadium is named after Veer Narayan Singh a landlord from Sonakhan who spearheaded the 1857 war Indian independence in Chhattisgarh.