Overview

The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at Kochi, unusual for a cricket ground in India in that it is the home ground not just of the Kerala state Ranji team but also of the football club FC Kochi, has a reputation of being a batsman's paradise: in the first four games there were three totals in excess of 300, and five individual hundreds. But if there's a bowler who'd like to take the pitch here and carry it around with him wherever he goes, it's Sachin Tendulkar, who has taken both his five-wicket hauls in ODIs here. Architecturally the stadium is distinctive, with giant convex floodlight pylons arching over the ground, over stands consisting of several tiers, making for a furnace-like effect when the ground is at all of its 60,000-strong capacity. Plans are afoot to build some kind of roof over the stands to protect spectators, and the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) also has plans for making a bid for Test status for the venue, which is owned by the Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA). (Chandrahas Choudhury)