Stadiums of Nepal: Dasharath Rangasala, TU Cricket Ground & More

Nepal's stadium map is concentrated in the Kathmandu Valley, with Pokhara as the main venue hub outside the capital and large new cricket grounds rising in the Tarai and inner Tarai. Football is anchored by Dasharath Rangasala in Tripureshwor, Kathmandu, which doubles as the de facto national stadium, while international cricket revolves around the Tribhuvan University (TU) International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur. A second generation of venues — Mulpani in north-east Kathmandu and the Gautam Buddha International Cricket Stadium in Bharatpur, Chitwan — is being built to give Nepal's fast-growing cricket team modern, higher-capacity homes.

Most public stadiums are owned by the Government of Nepal and administered through the National Sports Council (NSC, Rastriya Khelkud Parishad), while the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) and the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) organise the competitions played in them. Quoted capacities vary between sources because several grounds mix permanent seating with open terraces and temporary modular stands; the figures below use the most commonly cited post-renovation numbers.

Dasharath Rangasala in Tripureshwor, central Kathmandu, is Nepal's oldest and most storied stadium. Built in 1956 and inaugurated in 1958 (2015 BS), it is named after Dasharath Chand, one of the four great martyrs of Nepal's anti-Rana movement. The ground is owned by the Government of Nepal and run by the National Sports Council, and it serves as the home of the Nepal national football team as well as the Martyr's Memorial A-Division League and franchise competitions such as the Nepal Super League.

The most-searched question about the venue — Dasharath Rangasala's capacity — has changed with each rebuild. The stadium reportedly held up to 30,000 spectators in its early open-terrace decades, but modern all-seater safety standards have reduced that sharply: after the post-earthquake reconstruction completed in 2019, commonly cited figures range from about 13,000 to 15,000 seats. The stadium was renovated in 1998 for the 1999 South Asian Games, again in 2011 ahead of the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup, and a third time after suffering damage in the April 2015 (Baishakh 2072 BS) earthquake, reopening on 1 December 2019 for the 13th South Asian Games.

Dasharath Rangasala has hosted most of Nepali football's landmark occasions, including matches of the 2013 SAFF Championship and the 2022 SAFF Women's Championship, where Nepal's run to the final drew capacity crowds. It is also the site of Nepal's worst sporting tragedy: on 13 March 1988 (2044 BS), a sudden hailstorm during a club match against a visiting Bangladeshi side triggered a stampede toward locked exits, killing at least 93 people. The disaster remains one of the deadliest stadium incidents in world sport.

The Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground — universally known as the TU Cricket Ground — sits inside the Tribhuvan University campus in Kirtipur, on the south-western rim of the Kathmandu Valley at about 1,400 metres elevation. Opened in 1998 (2055 BS), when it staged matches of that year's ACC Trophy, it has been the home of virtually every landmark in Nepali cricket since: ICC World Cricket League events including the 2010 Division Five tournament that Nepal won at home, Asian Cricket Council tournaments, the Everest Premier League, and the first season of the Nepal Premier League (NPL) in December 2024, won by Janakpur Bolts.

The ground hosted Nepal's first home Twenty20 International on 5 December 2019, when Nepal beat Bhutan during the 2019 South Asian Games, and its first One Day International on 5 February 2020, when Nepal played Oman in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2. Famous for its mountain backdrop and packed grass embankments, TU Kirtipur is routinely described as one of the most atmospheric grounds in associate cricket.

A long-awaited modernisation began in March 2025. The first phase, completed in November 2025, added about 10,000 seats and six floodlight towers, taking capacity to roughly 13,000 and enabling day-night cricket. Further phases scheduled through late 2026 aim to lift capacity to around 30,000, which would make the TU cricket ground Nepal's largest completed sports venue; as with most construction timelines in Nepal, those dates are targets rather than certainties.

Mulpani Cricket Stadium lies in Mulpani on Kathmandu's north-eastern edge and actually comprises two grounds: an upper international ground with a capacity of about 4,000 and a much larger lower stadium that is still being built out. The site was conceived as a national cricket complex in the mid-2000s, but land disputes and funding gaps delayed serious construction until the 2020s. The long-term master plan for the lower ground has been reported at up to 40,000 spectators, with a substantially smaller capacity available during the current phased build-out.

Mulpani entered the international record books on 13 April 2025, when Nepal Under-19 played the United Arab Emirates Under-19 in the opening match of the ICC U19 World Cup Asia Qualifier — the ground's first ICC-sanctioned international fixture. It also stages domestic competitions such as the Prime Minister Cup and women's national tournaments, relieving pressure on TU Kirtipur as Nepal's international calendar grows.

On 9 November 2023, Nepal's Council of Ministers declared the cricket stadiums under construction at Mulpani, Chitwan and Biratnagar to be national pride projects (rastriya gaurav ka aayojana), a designation that prioritises them for federal budget allocations. Work reported through late 2025 focused on pavilion blocks, VIP stands, floodlighting and drainage at the lower ground, with the venue slated for ICC women's qualifying fixtures in 2026.

The Gautam Buddha International Cricket Stadium is being built in Bharatpur Metropolitan City, Chitwan District, Bagmati Province — not in Bhairahawa, with which it is frequently confused because Bhairahawa (Siddharthanagar) hosts the similarly named Gautam Buddha International Airport. The stadium project broke ground in 2018 as one of Nepal's most celebrated citizen initiatives: the Dhurmus-Suntali Foundation, led by comedian-philanthropists Sitaram Kattel (Dhurmus) and Kunjana Ghimire (Suntali), raised construction funds through nationwide crowdfunding.

The foundation withdrew in March 2022 after it could no longer service debts for construction materials, and ownership passed to Bharatpur Metropolitan City, which is completing the project with federal and Bagmati Province support. A contract worth about Rs 785.1 million was signed with a domestic joint venture, with construction running in two shifts; progress was reported at roughly 10 percent in October 2024 and about 40 percent by October 2025, against a completion target of January 2027.

Once finished, the stadium is planned to hold around 30,000 spectators, with a first phase of about 15,000 seats, two VIP towers, five pitches and modern drainage. If delivered to plan, it would be the first purpose-built international cricket stadium outside the Kathmandu Valley and a major venue for Nepal's home ODI and T20I calendar.

Pokhara Rangasala, originally named Annapurna Stadium, opened in 1980 (2037 BS) at Rambazaar on the eastern bank of the Seti River in southern Pokhara, Gandaki Province. With a widely cited capacity of about 18,500 — recent renovation reports mention roughly 16,500 installed modular seats including VIP areas — it is currently Nepal's largest operational stadium and the country's most important venue outside Kathmandu. It serves as a home ground for Pokhara-based football clubs and hosts selected Nepal national team fixtures and franchise matches.

The complex is genuinely multi-sport: the main football pitch is ringed by a 400-metre athletics track, and the wider grounds include a seven-a-side pitch, volleyball and basketball courts, a covered hall for indoor disciplines from badminton to boxing, and a separate cricket ground in use since 2004. Pokhara Rangasala was extensively renovated for the 13th South Asian Games in December 2019, which Nepal co-hosted across Kathmandu, Pokhara and Janakpur; the stadium staged athletics and football, while the adjacent Pokhara cricket ground hosted women's Twenty20 International matches during the Games.

Halchowk Stadium sits on high ground at Halchowk in north-west Kathmandu, near the road to Swayambhunath. Opened in 1998 and renovated in 2011, the roughly 5,000-capacity, grass-surfaced ground is owned by the Government of Nepal and operated by the Armed Police Force (APF), whose men's and women's football clubs use it as their home. Despite its modest size, Halchowk has repeatedly served as Kathmandu's second international football venue, hosting matches of the inaugural AFC President's Cup in 2005, the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup, the 2013 SAFF Championship and SAFF age-group tournaments in 2017 and 2019.

Beyond the six venues profiled here, Nepal's sports-infrastructure pipeline includes the ANFA Complex at Satdobato in Lalitpur (Nepali football's training headquarters), provincial stadiums under upgrade in cities such as Biratnagar, Butwal and Nepalgunj, and the national pride cricket stadiums planned for Chitwan and Biratnagar. Together with the TU Kirtipur expansion and the Mulpani and Bharatpur builds, these projects mark the largest wave of stadium construction in Nepal's history, driven chiefly by the men's cricket team's rise into ODI and T20 World Cup cricket.

Most major venues are state assets managed by the National Sports Council, the government body under the Ministry of Youth and Sports responsible for sports infrastructure nationwide. The NSC controls Dasharath Rangasala and the Mulpani complex, while the TU Cricket Ground stands on Tribhuvan University land, Halchowk is run by the Armed Police Force, and the Bharatpur cricket stadium is owned by Bharatpur Metropolitan City — an example of a local government leading a national-scale sports project under Nepal's federal structure.

Event control rests with the sport governing bodies: the All Nepal Football Association sanctions the leagues and international football played at Dasharath, Halchowk and Pokhara, and the Cricket Association of Nepal manages international cricket at TU Kirtipur and Mulpani. None of the grounds run formal stadium tours; match tickets are typically sold at venue counters and, for high-demand cricket fixtures, through online platforms announced by CAN or the event organisers.