National Stadium, Karachi

The National Stadium in Karachi has never been a place where football is played as a daily occupation. The ground was built in the early 1950s, a time when the country was drawing its first lines, and it has watched those lines change shape. It opened in April 1955 with a match against India that set a tone for decades to come, though the exact date of the first Test remains a matter of debate between February and April. The Pakistan Cricket Board owns the site now, and the Karachi Kings play their home games here, but the stadium’s history reaches further back into the sport of football than anyone might expect. In February 1982, it hosted the Quaid-e-Azam International Tournament, a rare moment when teams from Iran, Bangladesh and even a Chinese club came to walk out on the same turf.

Since then, the stadium has lived through renovations. The last major rebuild was for the ICC Champions Trophy, reducing the capacity temporarily before settling back at 30,000. The grass is natural, grown from Bermuda and Dhaka varieties, and it takes the heat differently than artificial surfaces. Football players still come here from time to time, but they are guests in a house built for cricket.