Column | Why Chepauk is a truly special venue

Cricket as a game is unique in that it possesses a rich history, which is replete with stories and anecdotes featuring not only matches and players but even about the grounds where the games are played. Unlike other team sports, ground and the conditions prevailing therein play an important role in determining the fate of a cricket match and hence they acquire an added significance. Moreover, grounds and stadia also have their own story to tell, which invariably makes for fascinating reading for the connoisseurs of this sport. One such venue, which has a earned a reputation for not only producing excellent cricket but also having a crowd that is rated as knowledgeable and perceptive by the best minds in the game is the M A Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk, Chennai, where the first Test between India and Bangladesh ended on Sunday.

India joined the Test playing nations in June, 1932, when they took on England at Lord’s. England, under Douglas Jardine of the infamous “Bodyline” series, toured India in 1933-34 and played three Tests, which were played at Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. The match at Bombay was played at Azad Maidan, opposite the Bombay Gymkhana, while the ones at Calcutta and Madras were played at Eden Gardens and the Madras Cricket Ground at Chepauk respectively. The names of these cities have changed now to Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai respectively and many new grounds and stadia have come up there. However, Eden Gardens and Chepauk still continue to host international matches at Kolkata and Chennai to this date. 

Till the advent of limited overs’ cricket, Test matches with visiting sides used to be played only at certain approved venues titled “Test centres”. It was the routine to have a Test match at Chepauk whenever a foreign side toured India. As cricket used to be strictly a winter sport in the country till the 1980s, such visits usually fell in the three month slot starting from November. In this calendar, it was customary to find Chennai hosting a Test in the first fortnight of January, coinciding with the “Pongal” festival.

This venue was known as Madras Cricket Club Stadium till 1982, after which it was re-named as M A Chidambaram Stadium, in memory of the former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president, who had contributed substantially towards development of the game in Tamil Nadu. This was the first stadium in the country to have covered galleries to protect the spectators from the harsh rays of the Sun, as they watched the proceedings through the day. There have rarely been any complaints regarding amenities provided both for players and the paying public in this stadium as officials of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA), who look after these aspects, tend to be responsive to the needs of the changing times and the increasing requirements of both these sectors.

It would be an understatement to state that Chepauk has been a popular venue for both home and visiting sides. The curator in charge of preparing the pitches has a track record of producing sporting pitches, which goes a long way to produce a fair contest between the bat and the ball. This can be seen from the fact that 24 out of the 35 Tests played here have produced a result, with India winning 16, losing seven and one match ending in the rarest of rare results - a tie. Eleven games finished in draws.

India won their first ever Test match on this ground, against England, by a margin of an innings and 8 runs, in February, 1952. Vinoo Mankad was the hero of this victory, returning match figures of 12/108 (8/55 in first innings and 4/53 in the second). He was ably assisted by off spinner Ghulam Ahmed who picked up four wickets in the second innings. Their combined efforts led to England being bowled out for 266 and 183. India, on the other hand, ran up a huge total of 457/9, helped by centuries from Pankaj Roy and Polly Umrigar.

Over the last nine decades, Chepauk also had the privilege of hosting many closely fought matches, besides the tied Test in September, 1986, where India and Australia fought tooth and nail. Apart from the excitement on the final day, where a sporting declaration by Allan Border saw India being set a challenging target of 348, this Test was also made memorable by a stupendous knock of 210 by the late Dean Jones, who braved severe dehydration while playing the epic knock. 

The series between India and Australia in 2000-01, where Steve Waugh led Australia locked horns with India under Sourav Ganguly, is widely hailed as the best Test ever played in India. It was only in the fitness of things that the last Test of this series was played at Chepauk. With the series tied 1-1 and India, on a resurgent note after turning the tables over Australia at Kolkata from a position of despair, this match generated considerable excitement even before the first ball was bowled. And true to the heightened expectations, it went down to the wire, with the game evenly poised and both sides having a chance to win it till Harbhajan Singh struck the wining runs for India, with just two wickets in hand. This Test came very close to the tied test in terms of sustained thrill and edge-of-the-seat excitement that only Test cricket can provide. Incidentally, this was a match where runs were scored, on an average, at a rate exceeding four runs per over.

Another close match was the one played between India and Pakistan in January, 1999, where the visitors triumphed over the hosts by a narrow margin of 12 runs. This game was a relatively low-scoring one and India were set a target of 271. But they lost 5 wickets by the time the total reached 82. At this juncture Tendulkar and Nayan Mongia came together and took the score to 218 when the latter was dismissed. Despite battling a strain caused by a spasm of his back muscle, Tendulkar continued gamely and took the score to 254 when he fell, more a victim to physical exhaustion than the opposing bowlers. His valiant knock of 136 turned out to be in vain as wickets fell after that in quick succession and India lost the match.

Quite a few of the best batting performances that the country has seen were played on this ground. It was here that G R Viswanath played his brilliant unbeaten knock of 97 against West Indies in 1975, when he singlehandedly took on the Andy Roberts, then the fastest bowler in the world. On a wicket that provided pace and bounce, Roberts was breathing fire, but Viswanath proved to be more than equal to the task and produced a gem of an innings, that will forever be written in golden letters in the history of Indian cricket. This was also the ground where Sunil Gavaskar made his highest score of 236 not out in Test cricket, which came against a West Indies attack that boasted of the likes of Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall and Winston Davis. Sachin Tendulkar too has left his indelible mark on this ground, by taking the legendary Shane Warne to the cleaners during his unbeaten knock of 155 against Australia in 1998.  

Though leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani holds the record for picking most wickets in a match in Chennai (16/136 ), off-spinners and fast bowers have fared well at Chepauk. Pace bowlers Roberts, Kapil Dev, Dattu Phadkar and Amar Singh have all picked 7 wickets in an innings once at this ground, which shows that the pitches prepared on this ground are not biased in favour of any one type of bowlers. Spin bowlers from other countries have also found on this venue a happy hunting ground as seen from the hauls of Hedley Verity, Ashley Mallet, Pat Pocock and Saqlain Mushtaq.

While many other grounds and stadia across the world may boast of similar statistics, what sets Chepauk apart from the rest is the demeanour of the average spectator on this venue. While the crowd here is without doubt one of the most knowledgeable ones in the world, it is also extremely sporting and supports good cricket, irrespective of whether it is played by the home side or the visitors. There are seldom any boos for visiting sides and the crowd ensures that all outstanding performances on the field are appreciated without fail. Their act of applauding the Pakistani players after they won the Test in 1999, when there were serious tensions between the two countries on the border, surprised even the visitors so much so that they took out an impromptu lap of honour around the stadium. One cannot expect any other set of spectators doing something similar anywhere else in the world.

It is unfortunate that despite possessing such an impressive history and repertoire of cricketing traditions, Chepauk has not yet hosted even a semifinal of the championships conducted by the International Cricket Council (ICC). This gives one the impression that  despite representatives from the TNCA holding the top posts of the BCCI and ICC, they have not been able to do full justice to the average follower of the game in this cricket crazy city. One hopes that this glaring injustice is rectified and Chepauk too gets an opportunity to host the finals of one the world championships conducted by the ICC in the near future.

(The author is a former international cricket umpire and a retired bureaucrat)