Inside Chepauk: Meet the architect who redesigned Chennais iconic cricket floor

MS Dhoni slumped into his seat, exhausted.

He would maybe hear the faint cries of ‘Thala’ – round 45,000 of them – mixed with the energetic beats from the DJ console, one thing that amplifies each time the door of the house crew dressing room opens.

Chennai has pinned hopes on Dhoni aka Number 7 since 2008, when he was picked for the Chennai Super Kings, a partnership that will quickly turn into an obsession for town’s cricket fanatics.

Dhoni’s excessive factors of happiness and disappointments have arrived on this little nook contained in the imposing MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai.

The cricketer just isn’t right here now – he most likely is plucking strawberries in his Ranchi farm or working a drone for Garuda Aerospace – however considered one of his diehard followers, architect Sanjeevi Krishnakumar, is.

“Goosebumps no?,” he says, eyes extensive in pleasure. Sanjeevi slides onto the No 7 chair contained in the CSK dressing room with trepidation, virtually like he wants permission. “Visiting the Chepauk stadium has been on my bucket record for a very long time and to expertise this place, the place all of the gamers truly hang around, offers me the chills,” says this 23-year-old architect, his eyes wandering by means of the workspaces of different CSK legends like Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin.

Sanjeevi – together with 50-plus architects – is making his means from the house crew dressing room to the hallowed stands on the MA Chidambaram Stadium. The floor comes alive throughout matchdays, crammed with yellow through the IPL and blue throughout Team India matches, however on a random Friday night, there are only a few workers setting the grass proper and serving folks contained in the historic Madras Cricket Club.

Guiding them on a tour, organised by the Indian Institute of Architects (Chennai Centre), is a person fairly acquainted with each nook and nook of this hallowed sporting premises. Venkat Aiyadurai of Nataraj and Venkat Architects, who has labored with the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association on many renovations together with the Madras Cricket Club and the Anna Pavilion prior to now, was approached in 2007 with a seemingly-impossible request: are you able to design a brand new stadium?

“It acquired me actually apprehensive,” recollects Venkat, “I had no clue how you can go about issues.”

Seeking steering, an anxious Venkat and crew reached out to Britain’s main architects Sir Michael Hopkins, who had labored on the well-known Mount Stand inside the long-lasting Lord’s Cricket Stadium. After some backwards and forwards, they acquired an thought on how you can take issues ahead, with the intention to fulfil the wants of the fashionable sport: extra spectators in higher consolation and ease of motion across the floor, amongst different issues. “I’m an avid cricket fan and have been watching the sport for a few years. In the olden days, after we largely had non permanent stands and roofs, at 3pm, after tea, the ball would begin swinging… primarily as a result of sea breeze. It was a pacers’ delight to start out bowling after tea throughout Test matches. I wished to convey that facet again with the brand new floor we have been designing.”

Bringing again the breeze – and therefore, extra help to swing bowling – was one of many very important features whereas designing the brand new stadium. This additionally meant higher air flow for spectators. Any cricket match in Chennai will be scorching and humid, however the gaps between the 12 stands within the new design ensures that the expertise is a bit more bearable.

Also very important was offering the perfect viewing expertise for the spectators, who normally should courageous visitors, crowds and humidity to get to their seats throughout match days. “In the olden days, it was troublesome for somebody sitting at a excessive angle to see the boundary under,” recollects Venkat. Applying the architectural idea of C-value, which refers back to the vertical distance between a spectator’s eye and the road of the sight that passes above the pinnacle of the individual within the row in entrance, Venkat, together with a number of inputs from the crew at Hopkins Architects, labored on the design. “This facet affected sighting of the cricket matches. We labored arduous on getting it proper.”

Chennai’s newly-designed stadium, operational since 2007 and witness to a number of pulsating sporting clashes, has been the topic of debate amongst many celebrities from the cricketing fraternity. One of them is former Indian cricketer and revered umpire, S Venkatraghavan. “He not too long ago advised me, ‘I’ve gone to grounds everywhere in the phrase, however Chepauk is the one place the place, no matter the place you sit, you may see the boundary under.’ That was the best praise I’ve acquired.”

What about fashionable cricketing greats? “Dravid (Rahul Dravid) had very good issues to inform in regards to the floor. Dhoni, I’ve been advised by the CSK personnel, loves it right here.”

Over the years, Chennai’s MA Chidambaram stadium has hosted many memorable Test matches, together with the once-popular Test matches and the historic 1986 Tied Test between India and Australia. Cricket nerds may even bear in mind the venue internet hosting a number of high-scoring encounters and comebacks within the ODI format. But for the reason that creation of IPL 2007, the T-20 format of thriller late night video games have caught the eye of many, thus additionally sparking off the necessity for AC hospitality bins, which have been all factored in throughout the brand new design.

Currently being renovated by the TNCA floor workers with a brand new inexperienced cowl, Chepauk will quickly get able to host matches of the T20 World Cup and IPL 2026. The whistles can be again. And sure, Dhoni can be hopefully again, sporting the yellow jersey.