Arun Jaitley Stadium: a Delhi cricket ground with a long Test history

Arun Jaitley Stadium is a cricket ground on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in New Delhi. It is owned and operated by the Delhi and District Cricket Association. The venue was formerly known as Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, a name still present in its history and in the memory of Delhi cricket supporters.

The ground hosted its first Test match in 1948, when India played the West Indies. Since then, it has been one of the important international cricket venues in the capital. The stadium has also hosted One Day International and Twenty20 cricket, giving it a place across several formats of the game.

The name was changed to Arun Jaitley Stadium in 2019 in honour of Arun Jaitley, who had served as president of the Delhi and District Cricket Association. The renaming connected the current venue with the organisation that manages it, while the ground’s earlier name remains part of its sporting identity.

The stadium is located near the historic Feroz Shah Kotla fort complex, which gives the venue a distinctive Delhi setting. Cricket infrastructure and medieval ruins occupy the same broad part of the city, linking the capital’s sporting present with its older built environment.

For Delhi’s cricket story, the stadium is significant because it is both a working international ground and a long-running local venue. Its history is measured not only by the matches played there but also by the succession of names, formats and teams that have passed through the ground since its first Test in 1948.

The ground’s former name points to the nearby Feroz Shah Kotla area and to the historic setting around the venue. Its present name reflects the Delhi and District Cricket Association’s association with Arun Jaitley. The change did not erase the ground’s earlier sporting history; instead, both names remain part of how Delhi cricket supporters identify the stadium.

Its international record covers the traditional Test format as well as One Day International and Twenty20 matches. That breadth matters because the venue has adapted to the changing structure of international cricket while remaining a single ground in central Delhi. The stadium is therefore both a historical Test venue and a place associated with shorter modern formats.

Arun Jaitley Stadium carries both its former Feroz Shah Kotla name and the later name honouring Arun Jaitley. Its Test, One Day International and Twenty20 history makes the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg ground a continuing part of Delhi’s cricket story.