Venues

Formerly known as the Karnataka State Cricket Association, foundation for this stadium was laid in May 1969 and the building began in 1970. The Stadium later got named after M Chinnaswamy, who served as the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from 1977 to1980 besides having been closely involved with the management of the Karnataka Cricket for nearly 40 years. The stadium is the home of the Indian Premier League (IPL) II runners-up Bangalore Royal Challengers.

In 1975, even while only half-finished, the Stadium earned the Test status hosting West Indies in an opening match. It was the same match where two West Indian sports stars Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards made their debut. Sunil Gavaskar played his epic farewell innings as well on the crumbling Bangalore pitch in December 1987, single handedly clashing with Pakistan while India tumbled as all the wickets fell around him in the series decider.

Memories of the historic India-Pakistan cricket rivalry World Cup quarter-final match on Bangalore Stadium in 1996 don’t cease to fade either. Before hosting the 1996 World Cup quarter-finals, the Stadium was actually revamped with Floodlights being installed for the first time. Another milestone for the Stadium was when jumbo Anil Kumble hit his celebrated 400th Test wicket in 2004. In fact, M.Chinnaswamy Stadium is the crèche that brought up various legendary Indian cricketers including Anil Kumble, Erapalli Prasanna, Chandrasekhar, Javagal Srinath and Rahul Dravid.

By and large, the Chinnaswamy Stadium has proved pretty auspicious especially for visiting teams like South Africa and Pakistan with Michael Clarke hitting his magnificent hundred on debut and Inzamam scoring his century in his 100th Test here.