Man who built Motera Stadium not invited to Namaste Trump event

Former vice-president of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Mrugesh Jaikrishna, who toiled for months to get the Motera stadium built in an incredibly short span of time, has not been invited to attend the Namaste Trump event.

United States President Donald Trump, who is in India at the moment, is expected has arrived at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad on February 24 to attend the special event along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The stadium will be hosting more than one lakh invitees today; however, Jaikrishna will not be one of them, reported the Mumbai Mirror. Speaking about it, the former VP of the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA), who had constructed the stadium in just eight months and 13 days, confirmed: “No, I have not been invited to the Namaste Trump event being held in Motera Stadium.”

But he bears no ill feelings. Content with the thought of the stadium built by him being the world’s biggest stadium, joy overcomes any other feeling he may harbor, Jaikrishna says. “When such a big event is happening at Motera, whether I am invited or not becomes inconsequential.”

Recollecting how the Sardar Patel stadium came into being, the 76-year-old industrialist said, earlier there was only the old Sardar Patel stadium, which was managed by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. During matches, the GCA would have to rent it in exchange for several complimentary passes. Officials would even ask for the pavilion passes for free, which used to be the main source of income for the sports body, claimed Jaikrishna.

Frustrated by this, he had reportedly floated the idea of constructing another stadium in Ahmedabad. The then Chief Minister Madhavsinh Solanki agreed to give the GCA the plot of land and work began without much ado.

It was ready to host the November 1983 test series between India and West Indies, selling 50 percent of the tickets and gradually abolishing the culture of seeking free passes.