When South African fast bowler Kyle Abbott bowled the first ball to Indian opener Rohit Sharma from the Mahanadi end of the Barabati Stadium here on Monday in the India-South Africa T-20 match, the stadium created history of hosting all three versions of international cricket.
While the Monday’s tie was the first T-20 international match of the venue, Barabati Stadium hosted the first One-day International (ODI) cricket match here in January 1982 when the host country trounced England by five wickets. This match was the third ODI hosted by the country and India clinched the series 2-1.
The Stadium, however, hosted the first cricket Test match much later in 1987 when an under-prepared wicket welcomed the Sri Lanka team to an embarrassing inning defeat. Dilip Vengsrakar’s 166 and Kapil Dev’s 300th Test wicket were the other highlights of the first Test match of this ground.
Since then, the venue has hosted only one more Test match during New Zealand’s India visit in 1995-96 series and the rain played spoilsport here in November 1995 and the match was cancelled when only 180 overs could be bowled.
Although, Barabati Stadium is no more considered a Test venue, yet it continues to be an ODI venue. Till the last ODI played here in November 2014, the venue has hosted 18 matches of this version in which India has a 11-5 win-loss records with one ODI in October 1996 against Australia was abandoned and another match of Reliance World Cup-1987 played between Australia and Zimbabwe.
The venue was scheduled to host its first international T-20 on October 22 last year when India and West Indies were set to clash here. But the match was abandoned as the State was hit by a cyclonic storm and the ground conditions were so poor that not a single ball was bowled. Nevertheless, not missing the dates with IPL T-20 matches, the Barabati Stadium on Monday repeated creating history of hosting the first international T-20 cricket matches to a jam-packed stadium having over 50,000 cricket lovers turning up to be a part of the history.
Hosts all the three versions of international cricket – Test match, ODI and T-20
