1. The Bombay Cricket story

2. Quiz – Name the cricketers

3. 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)

5. 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)

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

7. 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

8. The three Vijays – Merchant,
Hazare and Manjrekar

9. Hindus vs. Rest, 1943

10. Vijay Merchant – Oval 1946

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. Mumbai vs Gujarat, 1951 Ranji QF

15. The 50’s brigade
Naren
Tamhane
Nari Contractor
Pataudi
and
Umrigar

16. 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

17. 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

18. Mysore v Mumbai, Ranji SF, 1967

19. 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

20. The 70’s players
• Sunil Gavaskar,
Ramnath Parker,
Sudhir Naik, Karsan
Ghavri,Dilip
Vengsarkar, Ashok
Mankad

21. 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
•

23. 1971 team members with Indira

24. Karnataka vs Mumbai, Ranji semis -1974

25. In the 80’s
• Some India regulars
– Ravi Shastri, Sandeep Patil, Dilip Vengsarkar
• Others
– Lalchand Rajput, Ghulam Parker, Raju
Kulkarni, Chandrakant Pandit, BS Sandhu

26. Mumbai v Delhi final, 1985

27. Haryana v Mumbai, 1991

28. The recent shift
• More “out-of-town” players
– Sahil Kukreja, Rohit Sharma, Abhishek Nayar
• Talent from the suburbs
– Better infrastructure
– Rohit Sharma from Kandivli

29. Mumbai v Baroda, SF 2007