Gwalior stadium set for full-house international debut

The Shrimant Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Stadium in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, is set to make its international debut with the first T20I between hosts India and Bangladesh on Sunday, October 6.

The new stadium has hosted domestic T20 cricket before, but this will be the first instance of an international match at the venue. There are still works to be done on the stadium, especially with a new roof in the plans, but that will start later.

Tickets have reportedly sold out, and BCCI's (Board of Control for Cricket in India) Madhya Pradesh media manager, Rajiv Risodkar, is expecting a full turnout.

"The first phase of our stadium is complete, and we expect it to be full. About thirty thousand spectators are expected to watch the match.

"[It] feels good. This is an ideal venue for T20 cricket, and we had our first Madhya Pradesh league here. It was a great success, with a full crowd on all the days. The crowd is crazy for good cricket, and we feel this will be a successful one and the start of many more good things in Gwalior," he said while speaking to the media at the venue.

A contingent of Bangladesh players, who left the country yesterday, have arrived in Gwalior, while T20 stars from the Test squad are expected to join the side today. Bangladesh will start training at 1:00 pm at the venue, while the home will train from 5-8 pm.

The build-up to the highly anticipated match was somewhat hampered by incessant rain two weeks ago. Waterlogging was one of the biggest issues, but work has been done to prevent such cases in the future.

"Our preparations are going quite well. The only problem was that there was heavy rain 15 days ago. Water had come in, and we had to make extra effort to drain it out, but now it's okay," Rajiv informed further.

"The drainage system was okay, but that rainfall was too much. Never expected that much rain, so a lot of water gathered outside the stadium area. Otherwise, we don't have any issues, and we've sorted that one out too, so hoping we won't have that problem in the future."