Karachi home to three floodlight stadiums

KARACHI: Karachi is now home to three stadiums with floodlights in close proximity to each other, making it the second city of the country after Lahore to have this unique occurrence.

The three stadiums at Sir Shah Suleman Road are the iconic National Stadium, the Oval Academy (adjacent to the National Stadium), and the National Coaching Centre of Pakistan Sports Board.

Currently, installation of four floodlight towers is underway at the Oval Academy as part of the ongoing rehabilitation and development of the National Bank Cricket Stadium. The Oval Academy regularly hosts domestic and under-19 cricket matches, thus the installation of floodlights, which is expected to be done within one or two months, would facilitate practice sessions for the teams of Pakistan Super League (PSL).

Besides, the National Coaching Center (NCC) is also having the installation of floodlight towers as it was a long-standing demand from Karachi-based athletes. This installation of floodlights as well as two synthetic turfs, meant for Hockey 5 and Futsal, at NCC will be a significant step for the promotion of various sports.

In the past decade, the country witnessed significant growth of infrastructure development for sports including sports complexes, stadiums, gymnasiums, grounds, indoor arenas etc. at the provincial level.

This development revolutionised the landscape of sports facilities across the country, especially Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have seen remarkable advancement in this area and now there is a huge network of sports infrastructure in all three provinces.