After 22 years, iconic city stadium rises from the ashes

Visakhapatnam: Earlier this week, when Virat Kohli and his men were fighting it out against the Caribbeans at the Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA cricket stadium in one end of the city, their former colleagues in the national cricket team — Cheteshwar Pujara, Jaydev Unadkat and Karn Sharma — were busy playing at the Waltair Railway stadium some 15 km away near Visakhapatnam railway station.
While Undakat and Pujara were representing Saurasthra, Sharma was representing Railways in the Ranji Trophy match. But the key thing about this game was the return of first-class cricket to the city’s iconic railway ground, also one of the oldest grounds to host first-class cricket in undivided Andhra Pradesh.
“The evolution of this ground is an interesting story. It is a living witness to the sporting culture in Visakhapatnam and in Andhra. Initially, it used to mainly host football games. Gradually it turned out to be one of the oldest cricket stadiums to host first-class matches in the state, and has recently moved on to become a refurbished stadium,” A Prasanna Kumar, former rector of Andhra University and a cricket commentator, told STOI.
The history of the ground dates back to the late 19th century when British residents of the port city would come there to play football and cricket. “Visakhapatnam was then known for its thriving football culture and passion for hockey, which were mainly played by the city’s Anglo-Indian community. Cricket became popular in the early sixties. During those days the Andhra Medical College ground used to host a cricket tournament named after Major Ebden, who was a surgeon at the King George Hospital. It was during this tournament in 1963 that A Radhakrishna and IPS officer CG Saldana formed the district cricket association,” adds Prasanna Kumar, who is also the brother of Radhakrishna.
It was in 1960 that Railways took up the historic Dandakaranya-Bolangir-Kiriburu (DBK) project to facilitate the construction of three lines in the region’s tribal belt — the Kottavalasa-Koraput-Jeypore-Kirandaul line (Dandakaranya project), Titlagarh-Bolangir-Jharsuguda line and Rourkela-Kiriburu line.
“The chairman of the project, UGK Rao, took an active interest in developing the ground. During the construction of the project, funds started pouring in and the ground got a facelift. These efforts ultimately led to the ground hosting its maiden first-class match in 1964,” Prasanna Kumar recalls.
Since that Hyderabad vs Andhra Pradesh match in 1964, the ground has hosted seven Ranji matches and one Duleep Trophy match. “Starting from ML Jaisimha, Abbas Ali Baig, Gundappa Viswanath, Mohammed Azharuddin, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Anil Kumble, Sourav Ganguly and Javagal Srinath, to name a few, several star cricketers of the country have played on this ground,” recollects MS Mathur, manager of Railways cricket team.
Over time, however, the stadium lost its sheen. No major cricket match was hosted at the ground for 22 years. Most of the first-class games were played at the YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA stadium or at the municipality ground in One Town. Finally, in 2017, East Coast Railway (ECoR) decided to revamp the stadium with a budget of Rs 1 crore.
“We have laid a new pitch. We have also constructed state-of-the-art dressing rooms and rooms for officials. There is free Wi-Fi facility. Separate practice nets with floodlights have also been set up,” Chetan Kumar Srivastava, divisional railway manager, Waltair division, told STOI.
Finally on December 17, after a gap of 22 years, first-class cricket finally made a return to the historic ground when Saurashtra played Railways in a Group B Ranji Trophy game. The ground is also scheduled to host another Ranji game and three CK Nayadu matches later this season.
The present looks good, the future should be better. As they say, all’s well that ends well.