Sardar Patel Motera Cricket Stadium, Ahmedabad

Motera Cricket Stadium became the world’s largest cricket stadium following its inauguration. The stadium can accommodate over 110,000 cricket fans, surpassing its preceding record holder, Melbourne Cricket Ground. After two years of demolition, the new facility completed construction on the same 63-acre site as its predecessor, Sardar Patel Stadium - which is also the new stadium’s official title.

Unique Features
- The world’s largest cricket stadium with a seating capacity of 1,10,000 that is more than that of Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Australia.
- It has a large, single concourse between the upper and lower seating bowls for unobstructed movement and a 360-degree view of the field of play for the spectators.
- There are two large seating bowls that can each accommodate approximately 50,000 people. For small events, only the lower bowl can be used to maintain spectator atmosphere.
- A tensile fabric roof with fully locked cables having a 30 m cantilever projection and 1 km outer perimeter covers the upper bowl.
- The VIP Pavilion sports a doubly curved eye shaped façade that symbolizes Gujarat’s pottery industry.
- The field of play is fitted with LED lights, used for the first time in India

Vision
Motera Stadium responds to the vision of Shri. Narendra Modi, the Honourable Prime Minister of India, doubling the capacity of the previous venue. Despite its size, the stadium was constructed in three years. The new home of the Gujarat Cricket Association includes 75 corporate boxes, four team dressing rooms and facilities, state-of-the-art club facilities with practice grounds, an indoor cricket academy, and a 55-room clubhouse which will have an Olympic-size swimming pool.

The Intellects
The now well-known design-build project began when L&T, one of the largest contractors in India, decided to pursue the project. Walter P Moore was contacted by L&T to join the project team based on their experience in sports structures and lightweight long span roofs.

Striking Highlights
The stadium is IGBC’s ‘Gold Rating’ under its ‘Green New Building Rating System’. The VIP Pavilion has a presidential suite and 75 corporate boxes while the club house has 55 suites and an Olympic size swimming pool. It has separate training facilities for indoor and outdoor games.
The stadium has been designed for 100 years, the stadium has about 9000 precast elements weighing from 3 MT to 285 MT. The upper bowl is of precast elements with intricate geometrical shape and heavier elements. It also includes state-of-the-art drainage system that will help reduce rain delays.

Designing the roof
The concept of tensile fabric roof over upper bowl was developed by POPULOUS considering the elegant look of the stadium. L&T appointed Walter P Moore as structural consultant who has expertise in these types of roof system design. Walter P Moore carried out the design, considering the fact that the city of Ahmedabad is in seismic zone 3, the roof needed to be lightweight to reduce seismic demand and developed an economical roof system.

Therefore, very early in the design phase, it was decided that the best option would be to incorporate a lightweight cable-supported tensile membrane roof supported by steel columns. Additionally, the team decided that the reinforced concrete bowl and the roof structure needed to be independent of each other.

This decision was primarily motivated by the seismic hazard for the project. Without such an approach, the cost premium on the roof and the supporting structure due to seismic forces could have been significant.

Plant and Machinery Used
Tower Crane - 2 Nos.
Major Crane - 600 Ton (5 Nos.)
& 300 Ton (2 Nos)
Telescopic crane - 100 Ton (8 Nos)
Gantry crane - 75/ 20 Ton (7 Nos)
Mobile crane - 300 Ton (1 Nos)
Batching Plant - 30 cum/hr (2 Nos.)
Telescopic Man Lift - 120 to 150 ft (10 Nos)

Safety Adherence & Manpower
The project site has received various National and International safety awards like the globally approved British Safety Council 5-star rating with SWORD OF HONOUR, RoSPA Gold Rating certification and PRASHANSA PATRA from NSC.

Team Motera has followed all best practices in terms of EHS and Site team showed commitment to achieve organization’s Goal of “ZERO HARM”. The project had clocked more than 21 million safe man hours with zero ‘Loss of Time” Injury.

At peak times, 200 + engineers and 2500 + workmen were engaged in this landmark project.