From college ground to World Cup venue, Dharamsala stadium has come a long way
Dharamsala, October 22
The Dharamsala international cricket stadium, set up in the backdrop of the Dhauladhar mountain ranges, is among the most scenic stadiums in the world.
From being a simple playground of a Dharamsala government college to being the venue for five ICC World Cup matches this year, the stadium has come a long way over the past 20 years.
The work on the cricket stadium started in 2002 when the then BJP government, during the tenure of former CM Prem Kumar Dhumal, gave a piece of land, belonging to the state Education Department, to the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) on lease on a token amount. The HPCA, being headed by Dhumal’s son Anurag Thakur at that time, proposed to set up an international cricket stadium on that land.
The stadium was ready within a year with a limited seating capacity. The first inter-district cricket match was held at the stadium in 2003. However, the stadium hogged the limelight in March 2005 when India played against Pakistan on the ground.
It was in 2010 that for the first time IPL matches were hosted in this stadium. This brought in thousands of cricket fans and BCCI officials to Dharamsala. The IPL matches played at the stadium in 2012-13 propelled it to international fame.
However, the stadium landed in political controversy in 2014 after the then Congress government, led by late CM Virbhadra Singh, slapped cases against the HPCA for alleged violation of lease rules. Efforts were made by the government to take over the cricket stadium, but the HPCA contested it in the court and got relief. However, due to the controversy, no IPL or international cricket matches were hosted there from 2014 to 2016.
After the BJP government again came to power in state in 2017, the cases against the HPCA were dropped and the stadium once again started hosting national and international matches.
The cricket matches held at the stadium have definitely helped promote tourism in the city, which was earlier only known for being the abode of the Dalai Lama.
