The world’s largest cricket stadium opens
By David Malone, Associate Editor
Sardar Patel Stadium is now the largest cricket stadium in the world. Located in Ahmedabad, India, the stadium will be the new home of the Gujarat Cricket Association.
Spread across 63 acres with a capacity of 110,000, Sardar Patel Stadium surpasses the previous largest cricket stadium’s ( Australia’s Melbourne Cricket Ground) capacity by 10,000. A major design challenge for the project was to ensure uninterrupted sightlines of the field and pitch for all of the 110,000 seats. The bowl design comprises two large seating tiers, each with approximately 50,000 general admission seats.
Courtesy Walter P Moore.
All vehicular movement is on the ground floor while all pedestrian movement takes place on the level above, ensuring clear segregation and limiting congestion. Spectators approach from the north side of the stadium and enter on the first floor via a 12 meter high ramp. The stadium includes 76 corporate boxes, four team dressing rooms and facilities, club facilities with three practice grounds, an indoor cricket academy, and a 55-room clubhouse that will feature an Olympic-size swimming pool.
Courtesy Walter P Moore.
Because the stadium is located in a level 3 seismic area, the project’s structural engineer, Walter P Moore, proposed a tensile fabric roof system that is seismically separate from the concrete seating bowl and supported by steel “V” shaped columns. The columns resist gravity and lateral loads resulting from high winds and earthquakes. PTFE was stretched between a circumferential inner tension ring and an outer compression ring. A wind tunnel test was also performed to optimize the roof design.
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The stadium was officially inaugurated on Feb. 24.