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Lucknow’s Ekana Stadium to host its first international cricket match after 24 years
Lucknow: It will be a historical day for all Lucknowites on November 6th when they will witness first ever Twenty 20 cricket match to be played at Ekana stadium which is ready to host India Vs West Indies international game.
The city of Nawabs is set to host its first international cricket match in over two decades as India host West Indies for a T20I at the city’s new Ekana Stadium during the Caribbean outfit’s full tour from October.
India are set to host the Windies for two Tests, five One-Day Internationals and three Twenty20 Internationals, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Tuesday (September 4).
The tour, which will be staged between October 4 and November 11, 2018, begins with a two-Test series, the first of which will be played at Rajkot. Hyderabad will play host to the second Test that will be played from October 12.
The five-match ODI series will commence from October 21 with Guwahati, Pune, Indore, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram decided as the venues.
One of India’s biggest stadium Ekana International going to host first ever T20 match:
Windies’ 37-day long tour will end with the three-match T20I series that will be held in Kolkata, Lucknow, and Chennai respectively. This will be the first international game to be played in Lucknow’s 50,000-seater Ekana International Cricket Stadium that has so far hosted five domestic cricket matches since it was inaugurated in 2016 including the 2017-18 Duleep Trophy final between India Red and India Blue.
India will play two Tests, five ODIs and three T20Is against West Indies. The tour will kick-off with the first Test which starts in Rajkot from October 4.
The 50,000-seater Ekana Stadium has so far hosted only domestic games. It was earmarked to host an ODI against New Zealand in 2017. The game, though, had to be moved to Kanpur due to pending infrastructure work.
Windies have announced their squad for the two-Test series that will be led by Jason Holder and has the likes of Shannon Gabriel, Shai Hope and Kraigg Brathwaite to name a few.
India are currently on their tour to England which ends with the final Test at the Oval on September 11. They will then head over to the UAE for the six-team Asia Cup that starts from September 15 and runs upto September 28. India play their first game on 18 September.
India vs Windies, Tour Itinerary
First Test – October 4-8, Rajkot
Second Test – October 12-16, Hyderabad
First ODI – October 21, Guwahati
Second ODI – October 24, Indore
Third ODI – October 27, Pune
Fourth ODI – October 29, Mumbai
Fifth ODI – November 1, Thiruvananthapuram
First T20I – November 4, Kolkata
Second T20I – November 6, Lucknow
Third T20I – November 11, Chennai.
The last time an international match was held in Lucknow way back in 1994 when India beat Sri Lanka in a Test match at Babu Stadium.
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.
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