The bombay cricket story

The Bombay Cricket story

Quiz – Name the cricketers

History of cricket in India

• Calcutta cricket club – established in 1792

• Parsis – Orient club – Mumbai – 1848– Toured England in 1886 and 1888– Parsis encouraged by the British (considered

intelligent and loyal)

• Parsis– made their money in opium trade– played cricket (the opium of the people)

Pre-independence Mumbai teams

• Presidency (Parsis versus English) – 1892-1906 – 26 matches – 11 won by Parsis, 10 by English and 5 drawn

• Hindus joined in 1906 to make it triangular• Muslims joined in 1912 – Quadrangular• Christians, Anglo-Indians and Jews – 1929

–Pentangular• Religion wise teams stopped after 1942

(mainly due to Gandhiji’s objections)

Shivaji Park Gymkhana (A) – open to public in 1927

The Maidaners

• Shivaji Park maidan thrown open to public in 1927

• Produced first “commoners” in Indian cricket– Vijay Manjrekar– Subash Gupte

• Sobers rated Gupte better than Warne

The three Vijays – Merchant, Hazare and Manjrekar

Hindus vs. Rest, 1943

Vijay Merchant – Oval 1946

Ranji trophy

• Instituted in 1934 by Maharaja of Patiala

• Mumbai recorded straight wins from 1956-1973, have won it 39 times

• “The Bombay cricket team of the 1960’s could have easily defeated the present Indian team, Tendulkar included” – Raj Singh Dungarpur

Mumbai in the Ranji trophy

• Rajasthan lost seven finals (though they had Vinoo Mankad, Surti, Gupte, Durrani,Vijay Manjrekar and Hanumant Singh)

• Karnataka won in 1974 beating Mumbai in the semi-finals

Mumbai Ranji trophy wins

• 1934-1940 – 2• 1941-1950 – 3• 1951-1960 - 6• 1961-1970 - 10• 1971-1980 - 6• 1981-1990 - 3• 1991-2000 - 4• 2000-2010 - 5

Mumbai vs Gujarat, 1951 Ranji QF

The 50’s brigade

Naren Tamhane

Pataudi and Umrigar

Nari Contractor

The 60’s cricketers

• AL Wadekar – Took up cricket in college in 1957, was playing for Mumbai next year

• DN Sardesai – Migrated from Goa to Mumbai

• ED Solkar – Son of groundsman at Hindu gymkhana

Clubs and players

• Dadar Union – Vasu Paranjpe, Sunil Gavaskar, Ramnath Parker, Milind Rege

• Shivaji Park – Ajit Wadekar, Paddy Shivalkar, Ajit Pai, Baloo Gupte, Abdul Ismail

• Hindu Gymkhana – Budhi Kunderan, Dilip Sardesai, Eknath Solkar, Bapu Nadkarni

• Parsi cyclists – Russi Surti, Nari Contractor, Farokh Engineer,Behram Irani

Mysore v Mumbai, Ranji SF, 1967

In the 70’s

• Customs officer at Barbados: Anything to declare ?

• Dilip Sardesai: Runs maan, only runs

• Solkar: Why has the ball gone out of shape?

• Sobers: Because you keep snicking it so many times

The 70’s players

• Sunil Gavaskar, Ramnath Parker, Sudhir Naik, Karsan Ghavri,Dilip Vengsarkar, Ashok Mankad

Discipline

• Madhav Apte dropped Ramnath Kenny (a test cricketer) for coming just 25 minutes before a club match

• Ravi Shastri used to start at 5.30 am for practice

• Vengsarkar used to have nets 7am to 11am, Wadekar between 2.30 to 7pm

•

1971 team members with Indira

Karnataka vs Mumbai, Ranji semis -1974

In the 80’s

• Some India regulars– Ravi Shastri, Sandeep Patil, Dilip Vengsarkar

• Others– Lalchand Rajput, Ghulam Parker, Raju

Kulkarni, Chandrakant Pandit, BS Sandhu

Mumbai v Delhi final, 1985

Haryana v Mumbai, 1991

The recent shift

• More “out-of-town” players– Sahil Kukreja, Rohit Sharma, Abhishek Nayar

• Talent from the suburbs– Better infrastructure– Rohit Sharma from Kandivli

Mumbai v Baroda, SF 2007