Brabourne Stadium, Cricket field in Churchgate, Mumbai, India
Brabourne Stadium is a cricket field in Churchgate, a neighborhood in Mumbai close to Marine Drive. The complex features a large pavilion with covered seating, open-air stands, and a central playing area with maintained turf.
The Cricket Club of India laid the foundation stone on 22 May 1936, after secretary Anthony de Mello secured 90,000 square yards of reclaimed land from Governor Lord Brabourne. The ground opened on 7 December 1937 with a first-class match between CCI XI and Lord Tennyson's XI. It hosted Test cricket from 1948 to 1972, then again in December 2009 after a 36-year gap.
The ground is named after Lord Brabourne, Governor of Bombay when the land was negotiated and later Governor of Bengal; the Maharaja of Patiala suggested the name. The Maharaja of Patiala and the Maharaja of Idar each paid for a pavilion flanking the clubhouse. The Cricket Club of India, incorporated on 8 November 1933, still owns the ground.
The ground sits on reclaimed land along Marine Drive near Churchgate railway station in South Bombay, so the suburban Western Line is the nearest rail link. The stadium holds 50,000 for sports matches, with a pavilion and three public stands: West, North and East. The Brabourne is a Heritage Grade IIB structure, so expect older, overhanging roofs rather than modern seating decks.
The pavilion is a three-storey Art Deco nautical structure with rounded pediments, flagpoles and porthole windows, its walls hung with portraits of cricketers and photographs of famous matches. The Maharaja of Patiala paid for the pavilion bearing his name, and the Maharaja of Idar funded the Governor's Pavilion.
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