About M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru is one of the stadiums with the best and state-of-the-art facilities in India. It is located in the heart of the city and is named after the former president of BCCI, Mangalam Chinnaswamy. The stadium has a capacity of around 40,000 and plays home to the Karnataka state Ranji team and the Bangalore Franchise in the Indian Twenty20 League, other than the Indian national team, of course. The ground's ownership rests in the hand of the state government who have leased it out to the KSCA.
The stadium boasts of being the first stadium to use solar energy and produce electricity, a part of the 'Go Green' initiative. The first ever Test played here was in 1974 and is famous because it was also the debut match for legendary players like Sir Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge. The World Cup quarter-final between India and Pakistan in 1996 was played here and it was also the first match under lights at this ground.
Chinnaswamy also houses the National Cricket Academy where young talent in the country is spotted and honed. It is home to many famous Indian cricketers, the biggest of whom will be GR Viswanath, Erapalli Prasanna, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble. The small boundaries at the venue ensure high totals and lots of excitement for the general public in the limited over games. Some of the famous games are firstly - the tied World Cup game between India and England in 2011 where both teams ended up making 338, then the nail-biting match between India and Bangladesh in the 2016 WT20 which the hosts won by 1 run.
This venue also saw Rohit Sharma make his first-ever double hundred in ODIs against Australia in 2013. A high-scoring ground and lots of excitement for the crowd - that will be the best way to describe this stadium. In fact, the highest score recorded in the history of T20 cricket (263/5) has come at this very ground when Chris Gayle smashed a 175 (highest individual T20 score) against the now-defunct Pune franchise in the Indian T20 league.