Wankhede Stadium is the second largest cricket stadium that is located in Mumbai, Maharashtra. This cricket ground was established to solve the disputes between the Cricket club of India that owns the Brabourne Stadium and the Mumbai Cricket Association for the allocation of tickets in the cricket matches. The dispute reached at peak after the test match between India and England in the year 1973. The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) built this new stadium in the South Mumbai near the Churchgate Station. Mr. S.K. Wankhede took the main initiative to build the new stadium and the stadium was named after him. The stadium took six months of time to be completed and opened during the final test match between India and West Indies in 1975. Since then the glory of Brabourne Stadium was transferred to Wankhede stadium as the main cricketing ground of the city. The Wankhede Stadium has the capacity of 45, 000. The stadium has always the record of hosting many international matches in India. The Wankhede Stadium is home ground for the Mumbai Ranji Team and also for the Mumbai based franchise called Mumbai Indians. Since 2008, this ground has hosted all the home matches for the Mumbai Indians.
The Wankhede stadium has witnessed many great batting innings and bowling spells. Sunil Gavaskar made two hundred and five against West Indies; Kalicharan did hundred and eighty seven in the same game in the 1978-79 series. Ian Botham did century in this stadium and took thirteen wickets in the Jubilee Test in 1980. The highest batting score in Wankhede stadium is Vinod Kambli`s 224 against England in 1992-93. This is the stadium where Ravi Shastri made six sixes in an over and fastest double century against Baroda in a first class cricket match in the year 1984-85.
The cricket pitch of Wankhede Stadium is a bowler friendly track, which assist mostly the spinners as well as supports in the pace attacks. The pitch offers spin and bounces to the spin bowlers and provides swing to fast bowlers during the early part of each day as the ground is located close to sea and sea breeze affects the bowling speed. On the fourth and fifth day the pitch tends to break a bit that provides a lot of helps to the spinners. The pitch is also suitable for batting and many high scores were performed on the same pitch. In the year 1995, the stadium was renovated and floodlights were installed so that day and night games could be performed. In the very next year i.e. in 1996, the Wankhede Stadium hosted World -cup match between India and Australia.
The test match played between India versus England on March 18-22, 2006 in Wankhede stadium was typical as that was the only match won by a team who batted last.
Besides, the cricket matches the Wankhede stadium also holds other concerts like the concert of International superstar Shakira on March 25, 2007. 2011 World Cup cricket final was also held at this stadium.
The main gates to the Wankhede ground are named after Polly Umrigar and Vinoo Mankad. The stands are also named after the famous cricketers of Mumbai like; west stand is named after Vijay Merchant, east stand is named after Sunil Gavaskar and North stand is named after Sachin Tendulkar.
