Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera to be demolished

The Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera, Ahmedabad, is being pulled down with the view of building a new stadium with a greater capacity in two years time. The demolishing of the structure began on September 10 and is likely to take four months.

The stadium, built on 50 acres of land on the banks of the Sabarmati river, has hosted 12 Tests and 24 ODIs between 1983 and 2014. The venue provided the setting to some historic moments, including Sunil Gavaskar becoming the first-ever batsman to score 10000 Test runs in 1987, and Kapil Dev breaking Richard Hadlee's then world record of 431 Test wickets in 1994. The Sardar Patel Stadium also hosted the second quarter-final of the 2011 World Cup, where India beat Australia by five wickets.

The new stadium is likely to have improved infrastructure for both players as well as spectators with increase in number of air-conditioned boxes and parking facilities.