There was a time when Indore used to be one of the most important cricketing centres in India. It was also the hub of women’s cricket in Central India.
Neetu David had already played her part that day in 1997: with 2-19 from 10 overs, she had helped India restrict New Zealand to 176-9. But all that was of little help at this point, for India now needed six runs in 15 balls – and she was the last bat of the line-up.
Indore had seen India pull off a miracle in the past. Defending 130 in 1985, they had bowled out New Zealand for 73 here – but this time they were chasing.
David held her nerve, as did No.10 Deepa Marathe. Between them, they knocked off five of these runs. But it was not to be. Katrina Withers (later Keenan) had bowled six wides in the game, but now she clean bowled David.
The last women’s international match at the Nehru Stadium in Indore – a World Cup game, no less, in 1997 – thus ended in a tie. That, combined with the washout against Sri Lanka, meant that India had to face eventual champions Australia in the semi-final. They were knocked out.
These games were played at the Nehru Stadium, from which cricket in Indore has since moved on to the Holkar Stadium, which hosted five games at the 2025 World Cup. However, the city’s – and Central India’s – ties with women’s cricket go back a long way.
The city of firsts
The map of Central India used to look somewhat different in the British era. The boundaries have been redrawn several times since then. A chunk of what used to be Central Provinces back then is now Madhya Pradesh, a literal translation of that name. Indore used to be the hub of cricket here.
The city takes pride in producing India’s first Test captain, CK Nayudu – a colonel of the army of the Holkars, the great patrons of the sport in the region. The city was associated with the man throughout his career. Realising that Nayudu was a threat to his dream of Indian captaincy, Vizzy ran several smear campaigns. A particularly racist example ran “baahar se kaala, andar se kaala, bada badmash hai yeh Indorewala” (he is as black outside as he is within, the man from Indore is a rascal).
Nayudu’s statue stands tall in the park opposite the Nehru Stadium, along with the famous Victory Bat. Inside the Holkar Stadium compound is a cricket museum with few parallels in India. Occupying the place of pride there is another statue of Nayudu (in full army attire), numerous photographs, his enormous 30kg cricket kit … you get the idea.
But the Nayudu family’s tradition of producing “firsts” in Indian cricket was not restricted to CK. Part of it was by design. “I thought if he was first at something then I should also be first in something related to cricket,” admitted Chandra, his third daughter.
Chandra Nayudu took to cricket after watching her father play the sport. She used to play cricket in a white salwar kameez during her college days. When the England men’s team toured in 1976/77, she became India’s first female cricket commentator (and perhaps the second in the world, after the venerable Marjorie Pollard) during their tour game against Bombay at the Nehru Stadium in her city.
Chandra Nayudu did not have a long career as a cricketer, but in 1982, she donated the Smt Gunwati CK Nayudu Trophy – named after her mother – for inter-university women’s cricket.
By then, the teenage Sandhya Agarwal had been rising rapidly through the ranks in Indore. In 1986, Agarwal scored 190 against England at Worcester, at that point the highest score in women’s Tests. In 1990/91, she led India in a Test match in Australia. Till date, she is the only Indian to score 1,000 runs or four hundreds in the format.
Women’s cricket in Central India, however, dates back nearly a century before that.
“Colonial leisure, local curiosity, and social theatre”
Cricket spread in India in the second half of the 19th century, but progress remained slow outside Bombay and nearby places. With the odd exception, women’s cricket was restricted to the British, and often involved matches between teams representing genders. In these light-hearted contests, the men invariably played their cricket left-handed.
The matches “reflected a blend of colonial leisure, local curiosity, and social theatre,” wrote cricket historians Ankit Verma and Aayush Puthran in their monograph Across the Crease: Women’s Cricket in Central India 1890 to 1973.
One such match, between Ladies and Gentlemen on the maidan facing the All Saints Church in Nagpore (now Nagpur) on August 2, 1899, was organised by the railway employees of the Bengal-Nagpore audit department near All Saints Church. The Ladies (123 and 45) defeated Gentlemen (53 in their only innings) on first-innings lead. It must have been an important fixture, for The Times of India ran full scorecards.
The maps have been redrawn many times since then. Nagpur is now in Maharashtra, but the city is as “central” as it gets: the Zero Mile Stone in the city used to be the geographical centre in pre-partition India.
The match had some interesting features. One Mr Shakespear (the missing ‘e’ is not a typographic error) was the organiser of the day, which featured a large, performing live band during the game. He also played – as captain of the Ladies: the scorecard entry read Miss (Mr.) Shakespear. He was the only exception in that all-women side.
A “Test match” between Sahibs and Memsahibs was played in Jubbalpore (now Jabalpur) on February 11, 1921. Yet another contest was played in the Jubbalpore Cricket Week of November 1927. A match at Nagpur on November 19, 1934 deserves special mention, for it the Ladies were led by an Indian, Miss Dastur.
Royal contributions
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several Indian royal families took to cricket. With deep pockets at their disposal, they built their own teams and had some of the best cricketers in the country on their payroll.
Yashwant Rao II, the Maharaja of Holkar from 1926 to 1948, stood out among them. He had his own Holkar team, but unlike most others, he did not play for them. His endorsement and CK Nayudu’s leadership helped Holkar emerge as one of the foremost sides in Indian domestic cricket: they reached the Ranji final 10 times in 11 seasons between 1941/42 and 1954/55, winning it four times.
Despite not playing, Yashwant Rao was a regular feature in the stands, accompanied by his daughter Usha Raje, who often appeared in women’s matches in Indore in the 1970s. The Holkar Stadium was named after her until 2010.
Not too far away from Indore is Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh. Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, who led India, married Sajida Sultan, the second daughter of Hamidullah Khan, Bhopal’s last ruling Nawab. Their son Mansur was born in the city.
Hamidullah’s other daughter Abida was a talented athlete. Just as significant was the fact that she was encouraged to pursue sport. She drove a Rolls-Royce at the age of nine, flew aeroplanes, and was competent at swimming, polo, hockey, squash, and… cricket.
Indore becomes a hub
Until the formation of the Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI) in 1973, women played the sport in isolated pockets around India. It was far from being an organised sport. When they had to play serious cricket, women had little option but to enroll in boys’ clubs.
One such cricketer was Rajeshwar Dholakia Antani, who would play in India’s first ever Test as well as in the 1978 and 1982 World Cups. When her father wanted to enlist her to a summer coaching camp in Indore, the authorities were worried that she might get injured.
But like many others of her generation around the country, Antani persisted. In 1973, the Happy Wanderers in Indore ran an advertisement in Nai Dunia, asking for young girls to appear for cricket practice at the Nehru Stadium. The practice pitch was of concrete, “a slab between the boundary fence and the pavilion steps,” recalled Dholakia. A wooden plank served as stumps.
“Blades of green grass were a luxury,” added Abhilash Khandekar, president of the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association. “We didn’t have proper gear and would practise with cork balls since leather balls were too expensive,” noted Test cricketer Rekha Punekar. According to Dholakia, they also used soaked tennis balls for practice.
Yet, none of that could dampen the spirit of the cricketers. Dholakia was among them, as was Neelima Sarolkar, an ace kho-kho player – a sport the Happy Wanderers were renowned for – who would be honoured with the Arjuna Award in 1974. The preparations were sound enough for Madhya Pradesh to participate in the nationals in 1973/74.
Half a century later, Kranti Goud – she hails from the small town of Ghuwara – routed Bengal with 4-25 in the final to help Madhya Pradesh clinch the Senior Women’s One Day Competition. A WPL contract followed. On October 19, she took the new ball in a World Cup match against England… in front of her home crowd in Indore.
Things can get even better from here.
