The charm of the old Nehru stadium as new Indore hosts the World Cup

A lanky girl in her late teens wraps her batting gloves around her bat handle on the concrete pavement beyond the worn-down fence of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium under overcast skies in Indore. She whacks the under-arm half-volley straight to me and sticks her tongue out instantly, with a cheeky grin, implying that it wasn't intentional at all.

The once-iconic stadium, which started exclusively as a cricket venue under the Indore Municipal Corporation in 1964, now wears a dilapidated look. It hosted nine men's ODIs and two women's ODIs but hasn't hosted competitive cricket matches since 2001. It has since been turned into a multi-sports complex, with patches of overgrown grass covering a majority of the ground, and its corners occupied by aspiring athletes honing their skills in football, cricket, basketball and volleyball.

When former India opener Sandhya Agarwal was in her late teens, she used to dabble in kite flying, games of marbles and later on cricket with boys of her age in the gullies outside the same Nehru Stadium, where she grew up watching the likes of Sunil Gavaskar, GR Viswanath, Dilip Vengsarkar, S Venkataraghavan, and others in Ranji Trophy and international matches. Growing up in the vicinity of the ground sparked a fire in her to become an India international herself, and despite retiring in 1995, she is still the leading scorer for India in women's Tests and holds a storied place as one of only a handful of batters to score hundreds, including a 190 against England in 1986, which was then the highest individual score.

The Nehru Stadium is best remembered for witnessing Sachin Tendulkar become the first player to cross 10,000 ODI runs, on his way to 139 against Australia in 2001, and infamously for the three-over farce between India and Sri Lanka in 1997, when the match was called off as the dry and crumbling pitch was judged unsafe for the players to continue. That was the beginning of the end for the ground.

There was a match here that went largely unnoticed in 1997. It was a World Cup match. Between India women, who weren't under the wings of the BCCI, and New Zealand women. The ICC wasn't involved in the tournament either.

Agarwal had retired by then and was on commentary for Doordarshan, India's state-owned and only television broadcaster at the time. She recalls the ground had fairly "nominal" facilities, where New Zealand posted a modest 176 for 9 and India were just six runs away when they lost their ninth wicket, with 15 balls to go.

"Until then it felt like India were going to win easily," Agarwal reminisces while talking to ESPNcricinfo. "It was me and Sushil bhai - Sushil Doshi (journalist and sports commentator from Indore) - and we said to each other, 'ye jeet ki khushboo ab hamare commentator's box tak aane lagi hai (we can smell the victory till the commentator's box now),' I still remember."

She estimates there must have been just under a thousand people in the crowd, but they were very vocal in their support for the players who were still miles from becoming household names.

Opener Emily Drumm, New Zealand's top-scorer with 69, was on her first tour of the subcontinent, adjusting to "pretty average" hotels and facilities, and a crowd that was obviously supporting the home team.

"It was a tense one," Drumm says, jogging back her memory, "It ebbed and flowed. It was quite noisy with the crowd, good atmosphere. We didn't get enough runs, so I knew that was probably going to be really tight.

"Wickets fell at good intervals, and then India would get a little bit of parity and then we would break a partnership. It was one of those matches. It was a really funny game. There was a bit of bite between the teams, a little bit of chat. No love lost at all. So I think we got out of there alive just."

Neetu David getting bowled in the last over with the scores level meant New Zealand finished above India in the league stage and ultimately reached the final where they lost to Australia in Kolkata. Three years later the trans-Tasman rivals met each other once again, in Lincoln, and this time Drumm, the captain, lifted New Zealand's maiden World Cup trophy, edging out Australia by just four runs.

Now, another 25 years later, New Zealand return to Indore to kickstart their 2025 World Cup campaign against Australia. Both teams have gone through several transitions since then, the game has gone professional, and Indore also has a new ground - the Holkar Stadium - which started hosting international matches in 2006 but is yet to host a women's international. This World Cup, it's the venue for five games, including the India vs England clash - a rematch of the 2017 final - on October 19, which is likely to be the biggest crowd-puller of the lot.

Of the four Indian cities that will play host this World Cup, the rapid rise of Indore best mirrors the growth of the women's game. The city has developed expeditiously - proudly called "Mini-Mumbai" by the locals - just like the dizzying rise of the women's game, most recently proven by the record prize money this time of US$ 13.88 million, more than what the Australian men received ($10 million) for lifting the 2023 ODI trophy.

A number of players who have played pivotal roles in the transformation of the women's game will take the field in the coming weeks in Indore. If young girls - whether they train at Nehru Stadum or Holkar - want to get inspired, this is their best chance to see them in the flesh and light the fire in themselves.