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 Gandhijis 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 1960s 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 50s brigade

Naren Tamhane Nari Contractor Pataudi and Umrigar

The 60s 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 70s
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 70s 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 80s
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