US President Donald Trump will open the world’s biggest cricket stadium in India next week, but critics wonder whether it’s just another vanity project by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his home state of Gujarat, according to NDTV.
Trump, not known as a cricket aficionado and on his first visit to India, will inaugurate the 110,000-seat Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad on Monday, a grandiose occasion that has drawn further attention to Gujarat.
The 7.00-billion, perfectly round venue, with seats in the blue and saffron of the Indian cricket team, promises unobstructed views from every angle and has facilities including four dressing rooms and an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
It eclipses the 100,000-seat Melbourne Cricket Ground, the venerable venue that dates back to 1853 and has hosted the greats of the sport through the generations, from Donald Bradman to Ian Botham and Sachin Tendulkar.
The new stadium is not the first record-breaking monument to independence hero Sardar Patel to be unveiled in Gujarat, PM Modi’s home state where he was chief minister until 2014.
Sardar Patel is immortalised by the world’s biggest statue, the enormous Statue of Unity which was completed in 2018 and measures 182 metres (597 feet) - twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.
Trump will also follow China’s Xi Jinping, Japan’s Shinzo Abe and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel as just the latest head of state to visit Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s biggest city, since PM Modi took office in 2014.