Mumbai’s iconic Wankhede Stadium was inaugurated in October 1974, making this year its golden anniversary. The first test match was played on its grounds from 23-27 January 1975. It was the last in the India vs. West Indies test series and was memorable for the 242 not-out scored by West Indian batsman Clive Lloyd. It led to such jubilation in the stands that a fan excitedly ran onto the pitch to congratulate him. He was arrested by the Bombay police, resulting in protests from and disarray in the stands. This stalled the match temporarily. It was not an ideal opening, but the raucous uproar by the city’s cricket fans demonstrated how popular this sport was in Mumbai, a city whose maidans hosted the first friendly cricket match ever played in India, in 1797.[1]
Bombay’s 150-year plus cricket legacy precedes the construction of the Wankhede Stadium in 1975. It was marked by a mushrooming of cricket clubs on every city maidan, the carnival like intra-community cricket tournaments held on the Bombay Gymkhana grounds, and the highpoint of 1933, when the first international test match between India and England took place in the city.
To accommodate this first international match, and to regulate the sport, a central body, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), was established in 1928, followed by an association for the Presidency of Bombay except Sind, known as the Bombay Cricket Association (BCA, est. 1930).[2] [3]After the international test match, a need was felt for a proper stadium. [4] Four years later, Bombay’s first cricket stadium, named after the British governor Lord Brabourne, and the Cricket Club of India (CCI) Pavilion, were constructed off Marine Drive. The Brabourne was so grand in its time that it was compared with the Marylebone Cricket Club’s Lord’s Cricket Ground, because of its expansive and oval-shaped grounds.
The direct trigger for building the Wankhede Stadium, about a kilometer from the Brabourne, was the result of a parting of ways between the Bombay Cricket Association and the Cricket Club of India (CCI, est. 1933) in 1974. The tensions between the BCA and CCI began in the 1960s. Their partnership was a natural one, a regulatory association with hundreds of affiliated clubs, and the other the owner of a cricket pavilion and the only cricket stadium in the city. The construction of a second first-class cricket stadium of the same enormous size, built in the same area – Marine Drive – raised questions. The popular Times of India cricket journalist K.N. Prabhu suggested then that the demand for more tickets could be resolved by expanding the Brabourne itself, and the under-construction Wankhede be converted into a football stadium, as football was gaining popularity. [5]
His suggestion was ignored because the idea of building a rival stadium was a direct fallout of a disagreement between two cricket organisations[6], and especially their presidents: CCI’s Vijay Merchant, former India cricket captain and scion of a wealthy mill-owning family, and the Bombay Cricket Association’s (BCA) Barrister Sheshrao Krishnarao Wankhede, who was then Speaker of the House of [7] the Maharashtra state government.
According to Architect Shashi Prabhu, who designed the new Wankhede stadium[8], “The dispute was over the number of tickets being allotted by the CCI to the BCA for test matches at Brabourne.” The BCA[9] had 350 cricket clubs affiliated with it, and the tickets being offered by CCI, when the break happened, were 10,000 out of 35,000 seats, less than one-third. This was not enough to go around. A related issue, says author Simon Inglis in his book on stadiums, Sightlines: A Stadium Odyssey, was the simmering disagreement between the two clubs over how much of the profits from ticket sales were to be shared.
Prabhu was picked as lead architect for the Stadium project, as S.K. Wankhede insisted that the architect should have a keen understanding of the game.[10] [11] Prabhu was a cricket player but had never designed a stadium. So, along with the structural engineer Prashant Hadkar (Sr.) [12] was sent to study other stadiums across India. But the main challenge was the site itself[13].
Mumbai’s arterial railway carrying commuters along its western coast from north to south, was located alongside the new stadium plot. The biggest obstacle to construction was the raised railway embankment. British engineers had, in the first half of the 1860s, reinforced the embankment earth with huge boulders long before the stadium was thought of, when the sea touched the tracks. (This was done as the tracks were laid before the Lloyd’s Reclamation Scheme began in 1922,[14] of reclaiming land on which today’s Marine Drive is built. The sea then touched the tracks.) This made laying the pile foundations challenging, as many of the riggings set up either cracked or sank.[15] [16] To prevent sinking and cracking, the team decided to chisel and hammer through the boulders just below the surface in order to reach the natural rock strata. It was on the strata that the foundations were laid.
Prabhu and his team had another challenge: completing the stadium for the last India versus West Indies test match on 23-27 January 1975. That gave him just 13 months and 27 days to deliver. He attributes the timely completion to the sheer drive of BCA President S.K. Wankhede, secretary Prof. Chandgadkar, the contractor Behramjee Edulji Billimoria, and for the preparation of the ground, test cricketer Polly Umrigar, who lived on the parallel Queen’s Road and used to cross the railway overbridge daily to advise on the preparation of the pitch, infield, and outfield.
When it began functioning, the stands were full. Tehamtan Shastri, an avid cricket aficionado who attended most matches held at the Wankhede, says the seating in the new stadium was always cramped because there were always more people than tickets sold. “If you knew anyone with some ‘pull’, you were let in. One day, during a Ranji Trophy match,” he recalls, “Mr. Wankhede himself went row by row in the Pavilion, checking people’s tickets to ensure they had not gate-crashed.” Slowly, through the years, the Wankhede Stadium became the preferred venue over the Brabourne for international test matches and most national ones because of how active its Association was in the game. The BCA was renamed the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) soon after the city of Bombay was renamed as Mumbai in 1995.
This was the setting in which the two rival cricket clubs – MCA and CCI – finally patched up. The rebuilding of the Wankhede’s North and South Stands and renovations were necessary to meet the International Cricket Club’s (ICC) stringent standards for hosting the 2011 World Cup.[17] MCA had to maintain its participation in Test and One Day International (ODI) cricket during the renovation period that began in 2009, so in keeping with the spirit of this sport, both Clubs decided to work together. Matches were shifted during this time to the Brabourne Stadium.
The Wankhede stadium was transformed — from a squat 35-foot-high stadium into a substantially rebuilt and modern stadium.[18] The sides of the stadium were made steeper to resemble a teacup to enable the additional double height of the North and South Stands, without obstructing the spectator’s line of vision.[19]
As Wankhede transformed, so did Indian cricket. Privately owned teams called the Indian Premier League (IPL), which had mixed Indian and international players, became popular, and matches began to be played at night in cooler weather. Wankhede’s floodlights, added during the 2011 renovations, were ideal for night matches. One-day cricket matches like the 20-20 format of the IPL, often played after sunset, require ‘shadowless’ and ‘reflectionless’ lighting so the batsman does not misjudge the ball. Prabhu says that when Bajaj Lighting was testing the floodlights, he would often be on the field with his lux meter to ensure that the lighting was an exact 3,000 lumens.[20]
With the Wankhede Stadium’s celebrations underway, the MCA has much to be proud of: its stadium is Mumbai’s premier cricket ground and home to the Mumbai Indians IPL team. Its 50th anniversary plaque sits proudly on the Stadium’s Vinoo Mankad Gate.
The India-West Indies series inaugurated the stadium, and the India-Pakistan match marked its silver anniversary. Which international team will play against India in Wankhede’s Golden Year?
Sifra Lentin is Fellow, Bombay History, Gateway House.
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References:
[1] According to the Mumbai Cricket Association’s website, the first match played in the city was in 1797, a friendly one between two English sides – Military XI versus Island XI. See: https://www.mumbaicricket.com/assets/pdf/The_Pre-Natal_days.pdf
[2] See Mumbai Cricket Association’s history. https://www.mumbaicricket.com/assets/pdf/The_Birth.pdf (Accessed on 28 May 2025)
[3] After the break-up of Bombay State into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960, the BCA’s territorial mandate was reduced to clubs located in the city of Bombay and Thane, and later Navi Mumbai.
[4] See the history of the Cricket Club of India. https://www.thecricketclubofindia.com/history (accessed on 28 May 2025)
[5] Inglis, Simon, Sightlines: A Stadium Odyssey (reprint 2011, Vintage Digital, UK), chapter four.
[6] The BCA office was located on the ground floor of the North Stand of Brabourne Stadium, whilst the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), a central body established in 1928, was on the first floor. Originally, the BCA was located at the Bombay Gymkhana Club (est. 1875)[6], whose grounds hosted the first international cricket test match between India and England in 1933. It briefly shifted to Islam Gymkhana and after the Brabourne Stadium was built it shifted there.
[7] Minister Sheshrao K. Wankhede was in 1974, when the CCI and BCA parted ways, Speaker of the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly. He was the Speaker from 22 March 1972 to April 1977. Before this, he was Finance Minister of the State of Maharashtra twice, from 1 May 1960 to 8 March 1962, and from 5 December 1963 to 1 March 1967.
[8] Before the break-up, the BCA clubhouse was under construction, on the open recreational Lloyd’s (reclamation) grounds. The BCA office was going to shift to premises in the clubhouse.
[9] The Bombay Cricket Association was renamed Mumbai Cricket Association after the city was renamed Mumbai in 1995. It represents member clubs from Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, and Thane.
[10]Architect Shashi Prabhu played for his Shivaji Park cricket club and later for the Poddar College cricket team. At Poddar College, he was an opening batsman alongside cricketer Farrokh Engineer. He left Poddar after a year to pursue a degree in architecture.
[11] Architect Shashi Prabhu’s first project at the age of 24 was the BCA Clubhouse, which was named Garware Clubhouse after the Bhalchandra Digamber (Abasaheb) Garware. The Garware clubhouse was under construction at the time the fight between the BCA and CCI broke out. (Interview with Shashi Prabhu on 14 May 2025.)
[12] Structural engineer, Kamlakar Gadkar, son of senior Gadkar, who had just graduated in the UK, soon joined the team set up to construct the Stadium.
[13] The land lease of 50 years was given by the state government’s education department for Rs. 1/- per annum.
[14] The Backbay Reclamation Company had undertaken the first reclamation of land from the sea in this area. It went bankrupt in the 1865 Bombay Stock Market crash.
[15] The pile foundation for the Stadium was laid by AFCON Infrastructure Ltd. In 1974, it was known as Asia Foundations and Constructions Ltd, hence AFCON. See https://www.afcons.com/en/our-journey
[16] Other challenges were: (i)The site itself was hemmed in by residential buildings in the west, the University Stadium in the north, the railway line in the east, and the hockey stadium to its southeast; (ii) The total cost of construction was Rs. 1.80 crore, a sum the Association did not have but finally raised through bill discounting to keep the work going, but overriding all these factors was (iii) the cement and steel shortages in the 1970s, which one contractor’s tender, the lowest, cleverly bypassed by putting the responsibility of sourcing on the BCA.
[17] The finals of the ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup was held in the Wankhede Stadium, India beat Sri Lanka by six wickets in this keenly fought match.
[18] The architects were Shashi Prabhu & Associates and P.K. Das & Associates.
[19] The original Stadium had traditional roofing with supporting pillars, and seating for 38,000 people. Post 2011 renovations, the new bucket seats that replaced the benches reduced the seats to 35,000. An important innovation was the suspended fabricated cantilever roofing, which ensured there were no pillars to obstruct the spectators line of vision.
[20] Three thousand lumens is the exact reading at which there are no shadows or reflections on the field.