The 1983 Motera marvel

As the worldrsquos largest cricket stadium built at a staggering Rs 800 crore hosted its first international match here on Wednesday Mrugesh Jaykrishna 77 was taken back to 1983 when Motera first hosted an international matchThe former BCCI vicepresident played an instrumental role in ensuring Gujarat Cricket Association GCA got its own stadium for international cricket Before that the GCA was forced to rent the Sardar Patel Stadium in the Navrangpura area here and the BCCI would always hesitate in allotting international matches to the stateThatrsquos when Jaykrishna spoke to his GCA committee members and the construction of their own stadium began In a record eight months and 13 days the Sardar Patel Stadium was erected and the first Test was played on November 12 1983 between India and West IndieslsquoHumongous taskrsquoldquoIt was a humongous task All big cities like Mumbai Chennai and Bangalore had their own cricket stadiums built by their respective state associations So we were convinced that if Ahmedabad wanted to regularly host a Test or ODI wersquod have to build our own stadiumrdquo Jaykrishna told midday from his residence at Gandhinagar on WednesdayMrugesh JaikrishnaThe septuagenarian prefers watching the third India v England Test the first international match at the refurbished Narendra Modi Stadium on his television at home to avoid exposing himself to the crowd due to COVID19 situation Jaykrishna recalled the difficulties faced while building the Motera Stadium back then ldquoWe never had the luxury of funds that cricket now enjoys People were connected to cricket purely for the love of the sport The GCA operated from a rented office To organise a match at the municipal councilowned Navrangpura stadium we had to please everyone We were not given our own enclosure and there would be random demands for passes otherwise people would stop work Finally after numerous requests the state government allotted us a land parcel in Motera The ground was full of craters and to level it we had to pay around R40 lakh to the government So we planned to erect and sell around eight airconditioned corporate boxes for Rs 5 lakh each But there were no takers Somehow through our personal connections we roped in a few corporate houses like Nirlon and Mafatlal among others and raised the Rs 40 lakh to pay the governmentrdquo recalled JaykrishnaMrugesh Jaykrishna left with the former President of India Giani Zail SinghNo financial supportThe next challenge was to build the stadium without any financial support from the government or the BCCI as is the case currently where infrastructure subsidy is provided ldquoWe took bank loans on personal guarantees We had around 1900 workers working day and night to ensure the stadium was built in time because even a slight delay would cost us a lot We invited top Indian cricketers like Polly Umrigar Bishan Singh Bedi and Sunil Gavaskar to give us feedback on the ground and the facilitiesrdquo said JaykrishnaJaykrishna who was the GCA president when the first match was played copped flak due to an allegedly underprepared wicket but was happy to receive support from the legendary Vijay Merchant via a personal letter which he read out on his weekly showIncidentally both the old and new Motera stadiums have been inaugurated by Presidents of IndiamdashGiani Zail Singh in 1983 and Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday