The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne, Australia is currently the largest cricket ground in the world with over a seating capacity of 1 lakh, making it the 10th largest stadium in the world.
It has hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics, the 1992 ICC Cricket World Cup, the 2006 Commonwealth Games, and the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.
However, from next year, the MCG will have to relinquish its crown as the largest cricket stadium to the newly constructed Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad, India. The previous stadium was demolished in order to create a theatre-like stadium with a seating capacity more than that of the MCG.
The Sardar Patel Stadium, commonly known as the Motera Stadium is spread across 63 acres of land and has been designed by the same architect company that designed the MCG, Australian company Populous. The new stadium can accommodate approximately 1.1 lakh cricketing fans, which is double the seating capacity of the previous Motera ground and 10,000 more than what MCG currently holds.
According to The Week, apart from these audience seats, the stadium has 76 corporate boxes, four dressing rooms, three practice grounds, indoor practice pitches, training center, and a 55-room clubhouse.
The stadium has been estimated with construction costs of over INR 700 crores and the work is expected to be finalized in January 2020.
Unlike the floodlights in most of the stadiums, the Motera ground will have LED lights all over the venue. Also, there are plans for the first match in this new stadium to be a T20 game between India and World XI.
More than 90 percent of the work at the stadium has been completed.
