Holkar Stadium gears up for Test debut

The October heat of Indore is considered to be cruel. It is the second wind to the Indian summer, but it is certainly no Indian Summer. The heat can turn a deer black, it is said. So when it rains during this period, it is usually welcomed. However, the couple of hundred people working inside the Holkar Stadium here want it to rain as much as it wants now but not during the weekend or early next week.

Madhya Pradesh is often referred to as Hindustan Ka Dil, India's heart. Literal translation of the name of the state is central province. The jungles of MP provided Rudyard Kipling fertile ground for his imagination of The Jungle Book. The state's street food alone is worth the travel. The Gond tribe's eponymous paintings are recognised the world over. This state has given India such musical geniuses as Tansen and Kishore Kumar. India's first Test captain, CK Nayudu, and their first centurion in an away Test, Syed Mushtaq Ali, came from here. From the mid-40s to mid-50s this state's team, then known as Holkar, made it to 10 Ranji Trophy finals, winning four of them. More than 60 years on, Indore is gearing up to host India's second-largest state's first Test match.

It is ironic that what could prove to be the cricket-ruling elitists' final move is to take Test cricket away from the elite venues. It can be argued it is already a belated decision, but no ground deserves a Test debut more than Indore's Holkar Stadium. Walk in three days before the Test, and you will see every seat in the stands being washed with soap. Yes, actual soap. To wash plastic seats and wooden benches for the common public, not the members area. In an Indian ground. Some of the other grounds fail to provide soap in the toilets. Holkar Stadium could do without this final touch-up because it is arguably the cleanest stadium in India. No cigarette butts, no paan stains, no litter. Walk into some of the other, more legendary grounds, and you have to sit with nose covered even on match days.

Indore is a good idea because it is lucky enough to have its cricket ground bang in the middle of the city. The Holkars, the Maratha kings who ruled over this area since the mid-18th century, were patrons of the sport, and donated this land, which now belongs to the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association. There is a tennis complex in the vicinity, and various other sports associations are housed in this area too.

The ground has all the facilities Test cricket needs. It is known for a pitch with good bounce in first-class cricket. Good seamers and good batsmen do well here, but for Test cricket replace spinners with seamers, as is, fairly, expected.

The curator, Samandar Singh Chauhan, is the answer to the trivia question, "Who rolled out the two pitches in two different cities for the first two double-centuries in ODI cricket?", but he is more than that. Team innings in this Test might not be too much bigger than 200. Outside international cricket, though, this is considered to be one of the best pitches in India. It offers good bounce despite being composed of black clay, but the moment Chauhan came to know that this year's Ranji matches would be played at neutral venues, he provided two red-soil pitches for Madhya Pradesh to prepare on should they have to play many games in the West Zone.

There are nice touches to this ground. Sanjay Jagdale, a long-time BCCI administrator who is reluctantly into another - and final, he says - term as MPCA president, started working on this ground in the late 1990s. In the mid-2000s this stadium was ready for action. Before Chennai did it, this stadium had an Adelaide Oval-like roof. Before Mumbai did it, this stadium provided an unobstructed view from the stands. With a natural slope downhill from the centre, extensive covers, and two Super Soppers, this ground should prove to be one of the best-draining venues in India.

Being a new ground, its clean slate offers nice personal touches. One half of the stands are named after India legends - Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Vijay Hazare and Ajit Wadekar. Local legends such as Nayudu and Chandu Sarwate have stands named after them in the other half. Dressing rooms are named after two greats born in Madhya Pradesh: MAK Pataudi and Rahul Dravid. The gates are named after Madhya Pradesh stalwarts Narendra Hirwani, Rajesh Chauhan and Amay Khurasiya. The commentary box is named after the Hindi commentator Sushil Doshi. Umpire Narendra Menon's name adorns the umpires' room; his son Nitin will be the fourth umpire for this Test. At 32, one of the younger umpires from India, he will walk out of the room named after his father come Saturday and will take charge of the ground once the curators hand it over to the match officials.

Should there be any doubt, as created by the BCCI threat on Tuesday to not go ahead with the series, a visit to the ground will dispel it. The broadcasters are installing their cables as per schedule, which is a big indicator that no such pull-out is going to happen. There was momentary nervousness - the ground has hosted ODIs and IPL before, but Test cricket is the big thing - but Jagdale is too experienced an administrator to not know that this threat wasn't going to be carried out. While at the BCCI, before he resigned on moral grounds during the IPL corruption scandal, he was one of the early proponents of the idea of taking Test cricket to smaller venues. He says upwards of 18,000 season tickets have already been sold. The stadium can hold more than 25,000. If half the ticket holders and those who have to be obliged with complimentary passes turn up every day, it will be a success.

If Indore turns out to be a success, it won't necessarily stand for the larger success of taking Test cricket to new venues. This just happens to be a centrally located, clean, and welcoming ground. The real test for non-traditional venues will arrive when people will be asked to travel for upwards of half an hour outside Pune, Rajkot and Ranchi, with poor public transport and parking facilities.