General Cricket Thread ...

[Rajkumar Sharma]

IPL isn't responsible for decline. BCCI and system is responsible in not figuring out proper rules & regulation for players. After 17th season, they are now getting the players who doesn't want to feature in domestic but wants to play only IPL, which should have done much earlier. Hope the guidelines are followed doesn't become a formality. As per conditions are concerned, tracks like SENA can also be produced here, for that too happen centres should have been build in those conditions, many centres like SENA are there where domestic cricket is hardly played.

[jayakris]

I don't know if all of you had seen this. I don't follow cricket but somehow this came up on my Youtube feed.

Classic stuff! I don't know the batswoman. Grace Harris, it seems. I don't know what event it was either.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/r-HaE1wOp-8

"Hey guys, I need a new bat. A new bat.... Nah, nah, it's all right... Broken handle. Ah, stuff it, I will still hit it". That's what she said. The handle was broken. She breaks the bat and still hits it for a six. Whoa. What kind of confidence. Loved it.

Great that the microphones picked it all up as it happened and the announcers were having a ball. This is how sports should be. So much fun.

[Sanjay]

After he had retired Gavaskar once got a SOS call from one of his Dadar Union colleagues that they were a player short and if he could play. Gavaskar not only played but showed his old class as well. When asked why he had chosen to play he remarked that Dadar Union vs Shivaji Park was as big a sporting rivalry as India-Pakistan and there was no way he would miss the match.

I grew up in Dadar, Shivaji Park and my house overlooked the Maidan which was just 10 feet away and from my balcony could see the entire Shivaji Park , but somehow I chose Dadar Union on recommendation of Sandeep Patils father who was my Dad’s friend and stayed a few blocks away from our house.
Dadar Club was helmed by Vithal Patil a strong disciplinarian coach fondly nickname “Marshal” and one of his regular routines was to make us sit and watch his famous ward “Vengsarkar” in the nets and would tell us to just watch how he played , perfect in the “V’ and not a single ball was played in the air , just fluent ground strokes.

I don’t think there exists such a patch of land (Dadar) in the entire World which has produced So many International and Domestic sportsmen in a particular sport , just the few names come to mind , Wadekar , Babu Nadkarni , Gavaskar , Farrookh Engineer , Vengsarkar , Ramakant Desai Naren Tamanhe , Ramnath Parker , Gupte Brothers ,Ravi Shastri , Sandeep Patil , Vijay & Sanjay Manjrekar , Shreyas Iyer , Raju Kulkarni , and the famous of them Tendulkar who was not from Dadar but Bandra (East) but learned all his cricket in Dadar and so too Kambli , Pravin Ambre , Lalchand Rajput , these names which just which came to mind , and there would be at least 50 or many more International and Ranji players who were all from Dadar, and this feat of producing world renowned sportsmen from a particular suburb which I think is unmatched in the entire world for any sport.

Ramakant Desai was my uncle's classmate at King George School in Dadar. He was 3 years older than my uncle but my uncle had gotten a "double promotion" and I think Desai may have gotten held back.

[Rajiv]

Ramakant Desai was my uncle's classmate at King George School in Dadar. He was 3 years older than my uncle but my uncle had gotten a "double promotion" and I think Desai may have gotten held back.

^^^ Nice .. and if your Uncle went to King George I presume his family stayed near the school in "Hindu Colony " , King George School now renamed IES Shivaji Vidyalaya , also produced Dilip Vengsarkar & Sanjay Manjrekar , Raju Kulkarni and many Ranji Players.

Next to Shivaji Park Gymkhana was a Vada Pav stall where we use to assemble regularly which we use to call it “Katta”( A Marathi word for informal gatherings) and Ramakant was a frequent visitor to the “Katta” and use to regale us with his achievements .
Ramakant Desai was a unique cricketing product unheard in those days of being a Indian fast bowler , and that too being very short in stature and so aptly nicknamed “Tiny”
In absence of Video records , Ramakant use to take us through verbal visualisation of 1960 series against Pakistan where he was the highest wicket taker in the entire drawn series with 20 odd wickets , and his famous Bunny was Hanif Mohamed whom I think , Ramakant got him out 4 or 5 times , He unsettled and got Hanif out with short pitch stuff and the fabled Hanif Mohamed is on the record of saying that Ramakant Desai really shook my confidence as a batsman during that series.

And BTW the “Katta” was also the setting for an unofficial felicitation for a 14 year old first ever overseas trip (to UK) for coaching and playing after being involved in a 600 odd runs partnership in a Harris Shield Final playing for ShardaAsharam school – Dadar , and BCA immediately arranged the trip for him to UK to further develop and enhance his game and that young 14 year old went by the name SRT.

[Sanjay]

Ramakant Desai was my uncle's classmate at King George School in Dadar. He was 3 years older than my uncle but my uncle had gotten a "double promotion" and I think Desai may have gotten held back.

^^^ Nice .. and if your Uncle went to King George I presume his family stayed near the school in "Hindu Colony " , King George School now renamed IES Shivaji Vidyalaya , also produced Dilip Vengsarkar & Sanjay Manjrekar , Raju Kulkarni and many Ranji Players.

Next to Shivaji Park Gymkhana was a Vada Pav stall where we use to assemble regularly which we use to call it “Katta”( A Marathi word for informal gatherings) and Ramakant was a frequent visitor to the “Katta” and use to regale us with his achievements .
Ramakant Desai was a unique cricketing product unheard in those days of being a Indian fast bowler , and that too being very short in stature and so aptly nicknamed “Tiny”
In absence of Video records , Ramakant use to take us through verbal visualisation of 1960 series against Pakistan where he was the highest wicket taker in the entire drawn series with 20 odd wickets , and his famous Bunny was Hanif Mohamed whom I think , Ramakant got him out 4 or 5 times , He unsettled and got Hanif out with short pitch stuff and the fabled Hanif Mohamed is on the record of saying that Ramakant Desai really shook my confidence as a batsman during that series.

And BTW the “Katta” was also the setting for an unofficial felicitation for a 14 year old first ever overseas trip (to UK) for coaching and playing after being involved in a 600 odd runs partnership in a Harris Shield Final playing for ShardaAsharam school – Dadar , and BCA immediately arranged the trip for him to UK to further develop and enhance his game and that young 14 year old went by the name SRT.

Absolutely! Many from my family went to KGS in Dadar across 3 generations (I grew up in a different city). My father did too. My family has been in the building that houses the post office nearby for about 65 years. My cousin once showed me Dilip Vengsarkar's house in the 80s. I know Gavaskar used to live in the area too. I am an SMG fan and I found his name in a mid 1980s (maybe 1982) Bombay phone directory as

"Gavaskar S.M ...... 4 Wadi, Dadar, Mumbai 400014.... 443322"

Yes, I remember the details also after 40 years but I don't know where the building actually was. His phone number was also listed as above but I never had the courage to call and see.

About the famous SRT-VK match and the 600 run partnership.... I had TWO classmates across 2 different colleges in 2 different countries who were part of this famous match who played against SRT. One was my undergrad classmate. He used to boast a lot in those days so we never believed him. Then I came to the US for grad school and met another guy in my class who made the same claim and showed us the scorecard of the match with his name in it. I asked him if he knew my undergrad classmate and he did. Then I got them both in touch, this was mid 90s.

Ravi Shastri went to college near by (Podar College) and my elder cousin used to see him walk to his college, she went to Ruia. He was the heart-throb back then.

Very sad that Mumbai cricket is how it is today.

[Rajiv]

Yes, I remember the details also after 40 years but I don't know where the building actually was. His phone number was also listed as above but I never had the courage to call and see.

Very sad that Mumbai cricket is how it is today.

Gavaskar’s House was just next to the Dadar Club, where my Baptism to Tennis began with a wooden “ Symonds” racquet made of a leather grip and Sheep Gut strings.
I think “Gokul Niwas” or “ShramiK” was the name of the Bldg and his house was on the ground floor and few bldgs away stayed his uncle Madhav Mantri who introduced Sunil to the game.

Dadar has produced numerous luminaries in various field’s and most important, it was or still is a stronghold of Hindu Nationalism & belief's, Bal Thackeray spent nearly his entire life in Dadar and Sarvarkar also grew up in Dadar and his house is still there in Dadar called “Savarkar Sadan”, and growing up the RSS Shakha in Shivaji park was a regular part of our lives for me along with my class mate “Milind Soman”.

Cricket in Bombay is not the same anymore because earlier mostly only the metro’s like Bombay , Calcutta , Madras , Hyderabad and the principalities formed the pipeline for the producing National players and amongst them Bombay was at the top , but now the spread of Cricket across Pan India is complete and you have even 2nd , 3rd Tier cities from every corners of India producing International Cricketers.

[rajitghosh]

Cricket in Bombay is not the same anymore because earlier mostly only the metro’s like Bombay , Calcutta , Madras , Hyderabad and the principalities formed the pipeline for the producing National players and amongst them Bombay was at the top , but now the spread of Cricket across Pan India is complete and you have even 2nd , 3rd Tier cities from every corners of India producing International Cricketers.
[/quote]

Rajiv, I completely agree with you on this point about Mumbai's decline. Not that Mumbai doesn't have good players even now. But there is another reason I feel. Mumbai has seen this "turf" business growing where people set up these turfs for business. There people can come and play cricket and football. Some of these turfs are even on roofs of buildings since space is not there. The cricket is played with hard tennis balls. So lot of people are shifting to that. The traditional hard ball cricket doesn't have space in Mumbai where real estate is at a premium. We are losing the open grounds. This is a big disaster both for the environment and for sports. Same is the condition in many big cities. Calcutta is probably a bit lucky that the Maidan belongs to the Army and there is no real estate development there.

[PKBasu]

After losing the second test in Multan (thus drawing the series) with the West Indies, Pakistan finish at the bottom (9th out of 9 teams) in the current World Test Championship cycle!

[Sanjay]

Yes, I remember the details also after 40 years but I don't know where the building actually was. His phone number was also listed as above but I never had the courage to call and see.

Very sad that Mumbai cricket is how it is today.

Gavaskar’s House was just next to the Dadar Club, where my Baptism to Tennis began with a wooden “ Symonds” racquet made of a leather grip and Sheep Gut strings.
I think “Gokul Niwas” or “ShramiK” was the name of the Bldg and his house was on the ground floor and few bldgs away stayed his uncle Madhav Mantri who introduced Sunil to the game.

Dadar has produced numerous luminaries in various field’s and most important, it was or still is a stronghold of Hindu Nationalism & belief's, Bal Thackeray spent nearly his entire life in Dadar and Sarvarkar also grew up in Dadar and his house is still there in Dadar called “Savarkar Sadan”, and growing up the RSS Shakha in Shivaji park was a regular part of our lives for me along with my class mate “Milind Soman”.

Cricket in Bombay is not the same anymore because earlier mostly only the metro’s like Bombay , Calcutta , Madras , Hyderabad and the principalities formed the pipeline for the producing National players and amongst them Bombay was at the top , but now the spread of Cricket across Pan India is complete and you have even 2nd , 3rd Tier cities from every corners of India producing International Cricketers.

I've been to the Dadar Club a few times, I remember seeing Om Agrawal having a drink and playing cards with friends. My cousin who lives in Dadar told me he was there almost all the time. This was maybe 1988 and I see that he died in 1994. I was hoping to see one of the cricket players but they weren't there.

I did manage to track down Madhav Mantri's house address in Dadar, but looking through Google, it is replaced by a new apartment building. It was on 2nd or 3rd lane.

[Rajiv]

There were cricketers coming over to Dadar Club, and one of them use to come and play Tennis, although not regularly but about once or twice a month as Tennis was not his main sport
And then in 1981 Dilip Doshi got injured in NZ and he was flown as a replacement and we wished him luck and said our goodbyes and that was the last time we ever saw him in Dadar Club.

[sameerph]

Gavaskar’s House was just next to the Dadar Club, where my Baptism to Tennis began with a wooden “ Symonds” racquet made of a leather grip and Sheep Gut strings.

I guess Gavaskar and Dilip Vengasarkar stayed Hindu Colony which is on the other side of railway than Shivaji Park which is near seashore.

I think Sandip Patil stayed in Shivaji Park. In our college days, we used to go and see Sandip Patil play in Times league for Tatas and he used to hit big sixes on the gymkhana grounds which are close to Marine drive and many of the sixes ball used to land in sea.

After that Sandip went to Australia and had a big hundred against the likes of Denis Lillie and Len Pasco.

[Rajiv]

^^^ Yes it was Dadar and classified as Dadar East and Dadar West seperated by the railway line.
Gavaskar, Engineer, Vengsarkar , Paranjpae & Co were Dadar East gang
Wadekar, Manjrekar, Patil , Nadkarni & Co were Dadar West gang.

P.S. Engineer stayed in Dadar Parsi Colony , the Colony where Farrokh Bulsara ( Freddy Mercury ) would spend his vacation's with his uncle family in Parsi Colony, when away from Zanzibar or Panchgani

[rajitghosh]

Story of how India got to host the 1987 World Cup

It was the summer of 1983. Siddhartha Shankar Ray, ex-CM of West Bengal and an eminent barrister was on holiday in England. He was a big cricket fan. Against all odds India had reached the final. He reached out to his Congress colleague and BCCI President NKP Salve for tickets. But Salve was humiliated and no ticket was given. Salve and Ray hatched a plan to teach the Brits a lesson (Ray had English enmity in his blood as he was a grandson of freedom fighter Chittaranjan Das). They decided that India must host the next World Cup. So first thing they took the Pakistan cricket board into confidence and got their support. Next they convinced the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Ray after all had provided legal advice on somewhat more important matters to Mrs. Gandhi like imposing emergency). Mrs. Gandhi was on board. But India was a poor country and money was a problem. She reached out to Dhirubhai Ambani for sponsorship who agreed. There was a small problem though. The English held a veto power in the ICC and could overrule any decision of the Indian board. This is where the political acumen of people like Salve came in. Australia also had veto power. So they made an arrangement with Australia that if they supported India to host the 1987 World Cup they in turn would get to host the 1992 World Cup. Backchannel diplomacy was at its finest. Pakistan was already on board as a co-host. Sri Lanka would anyway support their sub-continental neighbours. Australia could veto England's bid for the 1987 World Cup and New Zealand could co-host the 1992 World Cup. Suddenly England was completely isolated and India and Pakistan were made co-hosts of the World Cup. The story does not end here. After Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated and Rajiv Gandhi became PM his Finance Minister VP Singh started targeting Reliance. Ambani was about to back out of the sponsorship. But somewhere along the way Rajiv and VP Singh fell out and Ambani was convinced to remain. However, he decided to call it the Reliance Cup and not the World Cup. That's how the 87 world Cup happened and a record crowd at Eden Gardens watched England and Australia play the final.
Sequel- 4 years later as South Africa returned to cricket and was to play their first match (again Eden was the host), Ali Bacher offered Jagmohan Dalmiya $10000 for the television rights. The South African ex-captain had shown the Marwari from Calcutta the biggest money making opportunity. As the economy in India opened up Dalmiya managed to sell television rights and make India the richest board in a few years time. It certainly helped that a certain Sachin Tendulkar was playing his wares at the same time.

[sameerph]

^^^ That is a very interesting story, Rajit. How the things have changed from those days to these days when India is dominating the ICC and able to pressurize ICC to host all it's matches in Dubai and are able to win a tournament for which the hosts were Pakistan without even putting a foot inside Pakistan.

[prasen9]

Story of how India got to host the 1987 World Cup
... <clipped>
returned to cricket and was to play their first match (again Eden was the host), Ali Bacher offered Jagmohan Dalmiya $10000 for the television rights. The South African ex-captain had shown the Marwari from Calcutta the biggest money making opportunity. As the economy in India opened up Dalmiya managed to sell television rights and make India the richest board in a few years time. It certainly helped that a certain Sachin Tendulkar was playing his wares at the same time.

This history is a small part of the true history. The roles of Jagmohan Dalmiya, Inderjit Singh Bindra, and NKP Salve are ignored or not mentioned much. These three were instrumental. Bindra was a civil servant. Later, in the mid nineties too, they went to court to break Doordarshan's monopoly. Only then could the product be developed and sold to the highest TV bidder, etc. I am not saying Rajit's story is wrong but it is only part of the story. A bit more can be found here or [url=https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-2-h ... kar-jkovc/]. Especially, about the details of the insult to Salve. The changing of the name of the cup from the Prudential Cup to Reliance Cup, Ambani, money, etc.