Delhi: New sensational news: Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium will be demolished and a luxurious sports city will be built in its place. This stadium has a special place in the infrastructure of Delhi and at one time it was considered the best stadium in the country. Be it the 1982 Asian Games or the 2010 Commonwealth Games, this huge stadium was their centre.

Why is Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium being demolished?

It is big news if such a stadium gets demolished. The Sports Ministry is working on a scheme to build a multi-purpose sports city on the 102-acre site of this stadium complex. This change is driven by the need to modernize India’s sports infrastructure in its bid to host the 2036 Olympics. Generally, whenever this huge stadium is mentioned, it is discussed especially for athletics and football.

Let us tell you that cricket has also been played in this stadium and many memorable moments are associated with these cricket matches. Then, when this stadium with a capacity of about 60,000 spectators was packed for cricket matches, it was a wonderful sight. Actually, flood lights were installed here and at that time it was possible to play cricket under flood lights only here. This became the stadium to host the first flood light international match in India. In fact, in the 80s and 90s, cricket was changing rapidly and day-night cricket matches started under flood lights even outside Australia. A new cricket culture was born and India joined this race because of this stadium. Installation of flood lights in the cricket stadium started after that.

Two ODI Internationals have been played so far at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi:

• India-Australia on September 28, 1984 in which Australia won by 48 runs
• India-South Africa on November 14, 1991 in which South Africa won by 8 wickets

The first day-night ODI took place in this stadium

The ODI against Australia in 1984 is special for the record that it was the first floodlit international cricket match held in India. The 1991 match was also historic because South Africa played international cricket for the first time against India on that tour and played the third and final ODI here. However, India lost in both the One Day Internationals played here.

After this, playing of cricket stopped in Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. On one hand, the introduction of flood lights towers in other stadiums of the country was responsible for this. At the same time, there was a lot of discussion about the problems faced in playing cricket in Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium. The stadium ground is rectangular and has a synthetic athletic track around it, whereas cricket requires a circular ground. To protect the track from damage, a cover was put on it, which sometimes became a problem for the running fielders. Due to the large distance of the stands from the pitch, it was difficult for the spectators to watch the match. There was not even time available to make a cricket pitch. Well, with this stadium a historic beginning was made in cricket in India and now this stadium itself is going to become history.