This article is about a multi-purpose stadium, which had been standing at the eastern state’s oldest capital for long. In Odisha, Cuttack is renowned as the sports capital. It was capital of Odisha for ages, since 1936, with the formation of Odisha as a separate state, from Odia linguistic communities, a new capital was born, which is famously known as Bhubaneswar. About 80 percentages of sports associations are situated in Cuttack. When, we talk about Barabati stadium in Cuttack, one can automatically relates oneself to cricket, due to its international cricketing status. With due course of time , Barabati stadium had hosted some of most prestigious international events like that of, hockey, football swimming, tennis and so on.
The stadium was constructed on 1950, March 12, on the remnants of Barabati fort, the major rulers of Odisha, who had conquered most of the areas of ancient India. Now, with due course of time, this stadium has been acquired by Cricket association of Odisha. In 2003, the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI) allowed 60 cores of rupees in the name of Barabati shining to modernize the stadium. There are plans to construct, galleries, VIP boxes, swimming pools, cricket academy, indoor halls inside the stadium. In preliminary stages, it was decided that, the expenditure incurred in this project should be equally divided among BCCI and state cricket association. This project tastes the success as till this day, 90 percentages of work completed.
On 2003, February 7, for the first time in the history of Barabati stadium, flood light system started. Due to this, for the first time, this stadium gets the opportunity to host the international day and night cricket matches. Mesco Company of Kapil Dev, the talented former cricketer, constructed flood lighting system, with eight cores of rupees. It has the eight flood lights all around the stadium, and it has uniqueness. It is the only flood light system which can run on generators. There are nine generators of capacity for 125 KV has been there inside the stadium. In due course of time, many international crickets and football day and night matches will be hosted in this stadium with glories.
In due course of time, the dressing room inside the stadium has been augmented with higher capacity and greater space, convenience for players. In earlier, the dressing room was small, now it is bigger, with greater, smarter and personalized conveniences for each player with enhanced personalization facilities. There has been separate locker for each player, with high quality sofa, cushion and benches apart from additional massages for player to get fit, if they are injured. The dressing rooms inside Barabati Stadium are similar to the stadiums like that of Kolkata, Mumbai, Lords and Melbourne.
There are the facilities of corporate boxes inside stadium, with three stairs, namely block A, block B and middle block, and this place has been the center of attractions for many audiences. There are 26 boxes inside this corporate box, out of it in eight boxes, 60 people can seat and in remaining 18 boxes, 30 each people can seat and enjoy the match with a homely feeling. All these boxes are air conditioned and in each boxes there are additional conveniences for audiences like that of dining, toilet, sound and LCD system.
Odisha is a place, where the cricket team has not performed its best for longer time in Ranji Trophy, the premier county cricket tournament of the country. to find and nurture talent in and around this state, the cricket board of Odisha, installed the cricket academy to groom rare talents and polish them to enter regional and later in international circuits. The name of the academy is Odisha Cricket Academy. It was first introduced by Dave Whitmore, the former successful cricketing coach of Australia on 2009, February. Till this day, seven batches of players have successfully passed out from this academy. In this academy, there are conveniences for special coaching, bowling machines, academy hostels, library, gymnasium, six turf wicket, two synthetic pitches and two cement pitches. Apart from all these, there have been people from the areas of coaching, support staffs, artificial grass pitch, medicine ball, swinger ball, cameras for video analysis, computer projector, and many practices pitches, and multi gym inside cricket academy.
The main office of Odisha Cricket Academy (OCA), has been renovated and beautified and the entire office has been centrally air conditioned. For the first time, the new international conference hall has been constructed inside stadium hall. This hall is made for press conferences of many national and international matches as well as meetings of Odisha Cricket association. Many players from national and international circuit have praised immensely about the facilities residing inside conference hall.
In the project named as Barbati shining, there is one aspect of constructing indoor hall inside stadium. It is named as Sachin Tendulkar indoor hall. There are facilities for three cricket pitches, inside this indoor hall and besides this; there are provisions for basketball, volley ball, table tennis inside this ultra modern indoor hall. There are facilities for dressing rooms and gymnasium inside this indoor hall.
The swimming pool is situated in the middle of Odisha Cricket Academy. In this swimming pool, there are nine tracks and in the galleries 10,000spectators can seat and enjoy this water sport. The depth of water inside this swimming pool is 22 feet. The dressing room for the players, appointment of trainer, physicians and life savers make this place a safer place to practice swimming.
It is not a myth that, you have to be fit to excel in sports. There are facilities for multi gym inside stadium, so that player can be fit and raring to give 100 percentages while they are on the fields. Here, there are plenty of instrument for physical exercise. There are many ultra modern machines, inside this multi gym, which includes machines like that of parallel bars, bull walker and so on. By using all these machines, player can makes shape of their physical conditions to perform better and excel in the fields.
Barabati Stadium is one few grounds of this country, where, most of outside sports played at the ground. This means that the pitch of the ground needs to be taken care of all year around. For this purpose, more than 30 workers had been attending the stadium. They work day in and day out throughout the year for preparing the cricket 30 yard pitch, and the out field, which is the significant part of modern game of cricket, where the brilliance of fielding has been getting more and more prominence. For pitch, the black cotton soil from eastern sea shores of Odisha is used and for out field, the dead grasses have been removed continually and in their places the new grasses planted. The name of principal curator of Barabati Stadium is Pankaj Pattanaik. In the initial days, in the 70s the capacity for this stadium was 20,000 and in 80s, some more galleries were built and the capacity for audiences increased to 30,000 but after starting Barabati Shining project, many constructions and changes has bee done and the audience limit increased to 40,000 after 2002 and with the recent introduction of India Premier League matches, the initiation of corporate boxes, increased the capacity for stadium to 50,000.
Be it cricket, or football, in national and international matches, Barabati Stadium has been popular in national and international stages. It is the heart of sports of this eastern state and with due course of time many new initiatives has been done in and around this stadium to make it a perfect amphitheatre for many sports. Due to arrival of many projects and initiation of many sports complexes, the entire shape of stadium is now changing for goodness. Due to these developments the stadium is now famous all around the world. This article dealt with the new and innovative development inside Barbati Stadiums after initiation of Barbati Shining project from 2003.