MS Dhoni slumped into his seat, exhausted.
He would maybe hear the faint cries of ‘Thala’ – round 45,000 of them – mixed with the energetic beats from the DJ console, one thing that amplifies each time the door of the house group dressing room opens.
Chennai has pinned hopes on Dhoni aka Number 7 since 2008, when he was picked for the Chennai Super Kings, a partnership that might quickly turn into an obsession for the metropolis’s cricket fanatics.
Dhoni’s excessive factors of happiness and disappointments have arrived on this little nook inside the imposing MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai.
The cricketer shouldn’t be right here now – he in all probability is plucking strawberries in his Ranchi farm or working a drone for Garuda Aerospace – however one in every of his diehard followers, architect Sanjeevi Krishnakumar, is.
A view of the dressing room inside Chennai’s MA Chidambaram stadium
| Photo Credit:
S Shivaraj
“Goosebumps no?,” he says, eyes huge in pleasure. Sanjeevi slides onto the No 7 chair inside the CSK dressing room with trepidation, virtually like he wants permission. “Visiting the Chepauk stadium has been on my bucket list for a long time and to experience this place, where all the players actually hang out, gives me the chills,” says this 23-year-old architect, his eyes wandering by means of the workspaces of different CSK legends like Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin.
Sanjeevi – together with 50-plus architects – is making his manner from the house group dressing room to the hallowed stands at the MA Chidambaram Stadium. The ground comes alive throughout matchdays, crammed with yellow throughout the IPL and blue throughout Team India matches, however on a random Friday night, there are only a few employees setting the grass proper and serving individuals inside the historic Madras Cricket Club.
Guiding them on a tour, organised by the Indian Institute of Architects (Chennai Centre), is a person fairly conversant in each nook and nook of this hallowed sporting premises. Venkat Aiyadurai of Nataraj and Venkat Architects, who has labored with the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association on many renovations together with the Madras Cricket Club and the Anna Pavilion in the previous, was approached in 2007 with a seemingly-impossible request: are you able to design a brand new stadium?
“It got me really worried,” remembers Venkat, “I had no clue how to go about things.”
A view of the ‘Anbuden’ area of the Chennai Super Kings inside the MA Chidambaram Stadium
| Photo Credit:
S Shivaraj
Seeking steering, an anxious Venkat and group reached out to Britain’s main architects Sir Michael Hopkins, who had labored on the well-known Mount Stand inside the iconic Lord’s Cricket Stadium. After some forwards and backwards, they obtained an concept on methods to take issues ahead, as a way to fulfil the wants of the fashionable sport: extra spectators in larger consolation and ease of motion round the ground, amongst different issues. “I’m an avid cricket fan and have been watching the game for many years. In the olden days, when we largely had temporary stands and roofs, at 3pm, after tea, the ball would start swinging… primarily due to sea breeze. It was a pacers’ delight to start bowling after tea during Test matches. I wanted to bring that aspect back with the new ground we were designing.”
Bringing again the breeze – and therefore, extra help to swing bowling – was one in every of the very important facets whereas designing the new stadium. This additionally meant higher air flow for spectators. Any cricket match in Chennai will be sizzling and humid, however the gaps between the 12 stands in the new design ensures that the expertise is a bit more bearable.
Also very important was offering the ideally suited viewing expertise for the spectators, who often must courageous visitors, crowds and humidity to get to their seats throughout match days. “In the olden days, it was difficult for someone sitting at a high angle to see the boundary below,” remembers Venkat. Applying the architectural idea of C-value, which refers to the vertical distance between a spectator’s eye and the line of the sight that passes above the head of the individual in the row in entrance, Venkat, together with a number of inputs from the group at Hopkins Architects, labored on the design. “This aspect affected sighting of the cricket matches. We worked hard on getting it right.”
Chennai’s newly-designed stadium, operational since 2007 and witness to a number of pulsating sporting clashes, has been the topic of dialogue amongst many celebrities from the cricketing fraternity. One of them is former Indian cricketer and revered umpire, S Venkatraghavan. “He recently told me, ‘I’ve gone to grounds all over the word, but Chepauk is the only place where, irrespective of where you sit, you can see the boundary below.’ That was the greatest compliment I’ve got.”
What about fashionable cricketing greats? “Dravid (Rahul Dravid) had very nice things to tell about the ground. Dhoni, I’ve been told by the CSK personnel, loves it here.”
An indoor practise facility inside the stadium
| Photo Credit:
S Shivaraj
Over the years, Chennai’s MA Chidambaram stadium has hosted many memorable Test matches, together with the once-popular Test matches and the historic 1986 Tied Test between India and Australia. Cricket nerds may even keep in mind the venue internet hosting a number of high-scoring encounters and comebacks in the ODI format. But since the creation of IPL 2007, the T-20 format of thriller late night video games have caught the consideration of many, thus additionally sparking off the want for AC hospitality bins, which have been all factored in throughout the new design.
Currently being renovated by the TNCA ground employees with a brand new inexperienced cowl, Chepauk will quickly get able to host matches of the T20 World Cup and IPL 2026. The whistles can be again. And sure, Dhoni can be hopefully again, sporting the yellow jersey.
