Trident floodlights and ghat-style seating: Kashi's 30,000-seat cricket stadium enters its last lap at Ganjari

The international cricket stadium coming up at Ganjari, near Rajatalab on the city's southern edge, is close enough to finished that the list of what is left has become quite short. At a site inspection this month, officials told the district administration that the major structures are done — the VIP pavilion on the south side, the east and west pavilions, the media centre, and the interior work. Grass is down on the field, and external development has passed 80 per cent. What mainly remains is the damru feature that gives the complex its signature. The design leans hard into Kashi's own visual vocabulary: a semi-circular roof, floodlight masts shaped like tridents, seating that steps down in tiers like the ghats, and an exterior worked around the bel-patra leaf. The ground is built for roughly 30,000 spectators at a cost of about ₹450 crore, on a foundation stone laid in September 2023. An inauguration is being talked about for September, though no date has been officially confirmed. What is already clear is what it changes on the ground. Eastern Uttar Pradesh gets a full international venue of its own, and Varanasi's young cricketers — who currently travel to Lucknow or Kanpur for anything played at that level — get one inside their own district, along with the sports tourism that tends to follow a ground like this.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: Live Aaryaavart