Fans have fun as Kerala regain lost ground
NEW DELHI: For most outside Kerala, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi is a cricket venue, a huge one at that. For locals, it’s a football stadium that occasionally plays host to ODIs to foot the bill. In official circles, it’s a ‘multi-purpose stadium’. So has been the story of the venue – better known locally as Kaloor Stadium – since the Kerala government and Greater Kochi Development Authority built it in 1996.
Originally built to host football matches, as a sort of solution to the ceaseless problems faced by the Corporation Stadium in Kozhikode, Kaloor Stadium, as the authorities soon realised, was a burden on the exchequer. The Kerala Football Association (KFA) simply did not have the financial muscle to keep it running, nor did any of the football clubs that played there. The most viable solution was to hand over the maintenance to the Kerala Cricket Association.
Since then began the tilling and relaying of the turf before any tournament or series, as the requirements of football and cricket are, naturally, different. The same was the reason why India Super League side, Kerala Blasters — the current tenant — played their first five matches away. The ISL, unlike the Federation Cup, which was held at the venue earlier this year, COMMENDABLE JOB However, after an initial state of uncertainty, the Kaloor Stadium put up its best cosmetics for the Blasters’ first home game against FC Goa on November 6 — a game that saw close more than 47,000 fans cheering the 1-0 win. The players and coaches came on record to had stricter criteria, and fulfilling those take time. That Kochi also hosted the first ODI between India and West Indies on October 8 compounded the problems. praise the atmosphere while most were happy with the pitch.
“We had done a lot of work on the pitch and gallery ahead of the match,” said KFA secretary, P Anil Kumar. “The ISL has a set of criteria every stadium has to fulfill. We had to cover the cricket pitch with grass. It takes around 10-15 days for the grass to grow. For it to acquire the thickness required, it takes another week or so. But since the pitch already had grass on it, it wasn’t that difficult.
“A lot was done outside the pitch as well. For hosting the cricket matches, the seats behind the screens were removed. We installed fresh set of seats there. The entire stadium was refurbished, the lavatories were upgraded…. We also set up a new permanent media box --- one that could accommodate 150 personnel. The VIP lounge was also given a facelift. If not for the ISL we would not have had the capability to do such work,” said Anil Kumar.