SPORTS

Sports has always been the integral part of the town of Kalyani and plays an important role in the development and popularity of it. In its initial days the Kalyani Town Club contributed remarkably to the development of the realm of sports in the town. The club was registered in the year 1960 on 6^th May. Finally it was formally founded on 5^th January, 1963 with its own building by the then chief minister of West Bengal Mr. Prafulla Chandra Sen. The club is situated near the Kalyani Central Park and in turn is of the responsibility of maintaining the park. Over the time, the club has quite well developed leading to the creation of a solid base for various sports activities of the town. The club also organises various cultural events in the town such as the fairs, cultural meets, flower shows, art exhibitions and so on. There is also a separate unit within the club that gives trainings to the young residents of the town in sports such as cricket, football, badminton and so on.

The major landmark in the realm of sports in Kalyani has been the foundation of the Kalyani Stadium. The stadium is known for its one of the best quality pitch both for football and cricket. This has also been the home ground for the I-League side Prayag United. The stadium has organised many I-League and Calcutta Football League matches attracting a huge amount of spectators from all over the state. There is also an attached swimming pool and gymnasium to the stadium both for the players. However, there was a span of halt between the laying of the foundation stone and the starting of the building of the stadium due to some political reasons and lack of attention from the government. Over the last 2-3 years, the development of the stadium has been in leaps and bounds helping in creating a popular identity for the town.

The next major development in the arena of sports in the town has been the creation of the Cricket Association of Bengal ground in proximity to the Kalyani University Experimental High School in B block. This officially came up around 2009 and was inaugurated later by Sandip Patil, Sourav Ganguly and so on. After the ground started its journey, it hoisted many matches of various well known trophies of India. It organised matches of inter state under 17 competition, Deodhar Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and very few matches of Ranji Trophy. Recently, in the year 2017 Mahendra Singh Dhoni showed his batting and keeping skills in the ground while representing Jharkhand against Railways and Jammu and Kashmir in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

Thus, we can say that sports in Kalyani has made a remarkable progress bringing joy and refreshment not only to the residents of the town but also to the many people of the state of West Bengal.