India, England cricket teams to arrive on Sunday

Dharamsala, March 1

India and England cricket teams will arrive here on March 3 for forthcoming Test match between the two countries to be held at the international cricket stadium from March 7 to 11.

In a press release issued today, the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) said sale of tickets for the Test match would begin on March 3. Students can purchase offline tickets from counter at the HPCA cricket stadium from Sunday onwards.

From college ground to int’l stadium

• The Dharamsala stadium has come a long way in the last 20 years, from a playground of Dharamsala Government College to the venue for five ICC World Cup matches in a single month.
• Work on the stadium began in 2002 when the then BJP government, led by ex-Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, gave a piece of land belonging to the state Education Department to the HPCA at a token amount on lease

They will be given match tickets at concessional rates of Rs 100 per day. Each student can purchase only two tickets from the counter and the tickets cannot be transferred, an HPCA spokesperson said.

He added that the sale of online tickets would also start from March 3. This will be the second international test match to be played at the stadium. The previous Test match was played between India and Australia in 2016.

The hosting of Test match in Dharamsala has been welcomed by the local tourism industry. Sanjeev Gandhi, general secretary, Smart City Dharamsala Hotel and Restaurant Association, said he hoped that the Test match would help bring more tourists to the region. Five ICC World Cup matches were organised at Dharamsala in October last and that had also resulted in a large number of tourists visiting here, he said.

The stadium has come a long way in the last 20 years, from a playground of Dharamsala Government College to being the venue for five ICC World Cup matches in a single month.

Work on the present stadium began in 2002 when the then BJP government, led by former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal gave a piece of land belonging to the state education department to the HPCA on a token amount on lease. The HPCA that was at that time headed by Dhumal’s son Anurag Thakur, who proposed to set up an international cricket stadium on the land. The cricket stadium was built within a year by the HPCA, though it had a limited seating capacity initially. In 2003, first inter-district cricket matches were held at the stadium.

In March 2005, the first match of significance between India Board 11 and Pakistan was held at Dharamsala, which brought the stadium into focus.

The club house and media centre of the stadium came up in 2009. Indoor practice area and rehabilitation centre were built in 2010.

The year 2010 was significant as it was then that for the first time, IPL matches were played at the stadium. In the successive two years of 2012 and 2013, the IPL matches remained as main cricketing events, which propelled the stadium to international fame.