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Eternal India
encyclopedia
SPORTS
The birth of the BCCI, however, was not without long and
protracted birth pangs. By the 1920s the game had become very
popular in most of the provinces, which were conducting a number of
tournaments. Some of the tournaments were open in nature and by
the late 1920s there were enough players of promise to compose a
team comprising players from all over India.
Robertson and Sir Robert Currie of the Calcutta Cricket Club
were allowed as special representatives of India to attend the ICC
meetings at Lord’s on 31st May and 28th July, 1926 on condition
that the Indians would soon constitute a national association for the
governance of the game in the country. In the 1926 ICC meetings,
the MCC promised to send a team to India and during 1926/27 a rep-
resentative English team led by Arthur Gilligan toured India exten-
sively for six months to discover its cricketing potentials. The team
also played two representative matches against an All-India XI and
in the Bombay match C.K. Nayudu came into the limelight scoring
153 runs in 100 minutes with 11 sixes and 13 fours. The other match
was played in Calcutta.
At the behest of Sir Dorabji Tata, the Parsi Gymkhana sent
circulars to all organisations connected with cricket eliciting opinion
on the need for a central cricket board in India with regard to future
tours to and from other cricket playing countries. Though the differ-
ent organisations had their own viewpoints, they were all agreed
that an Indian cricket board had to be formed if the game in India
was to rise above the level which it had reached.
At the initiative taken by Grant Govan, 45 representatives, in-
cluding some Maharajas and Nawabs attended a meeting on 21st
November, 1927 at the Roshanara Club in Delhi and took a defini-
tive step to form a central board for cricket with headquarters in
Delhi. .Grant Govan was invited to the Quadrangular committee
meeting in Bombay on 10th December, 1927 which appointed W.J.
Cullen and J.E. Macdonell to act temporarily as honorary joint
secretaries of the provincial board till such time as the formation of
territorial associations and the representation of such associations
on the central board.
In 1928 the provincial board was dissolved and the Board of
Control for Cricket in India constituted with Grant Govan as its first
president and Anthony S. De Mello as the first secretary.
India was admitted to the ICC in 1929, granted Test status in
1932 and made its Test debut on 25th June, 1932 at Lord’s. The
Maharaja of Porbundar who led the team stepped down on the eve
of the match and gave the honour of captaining the first Indian Test
cricket team to C.K. Nayudu.
Even as the confabulations were on for the growth and devel-
opment of cricket in India,three Indians - Ranjitsinghji, his nephew
Duleepsinghji and the Nawab of Pataudi (Senior) - had carved a
niche for themselves by playing for English teams. Ranjitsinghji
also had the honour of leading the Sussex team from 1899 to 1903.
From Ranjitsinghji, Duleepsinghji, Nawab of Pataudi (Senior),
Vijay Merchant, Vijay Hazare, Vijay Manjrekar, Polly Umrigar to
Sunil Manohar Gavaskar, India has had the tradition of producing
batsmen of great international calibre who have left a mark in the
history of world cricket. Though comparisons between players be-
longing to different eras can be odious, Sunil Gavaskar earned a
special place for himself among all time Indian cricketing greats by
becoming the first ever batsman in world cricket to cross the
10,000-run mark in the histojy of Test cricket. Sunil Gavaskar’s
10,122 runs from 125 Tests including 34 centuries (of which four
were double centuries) has
now been surpassed by
Australian
captain
Alan
Border. In the bowling de-
partment too, the Indians
have produced bowlers of
high international reputa-
tion. Especially, the Indian
art of spin bowling and the
exponents of this art from
Bapu
Nadkarni,
Subhas
Gupte,
B.S. Chan-
drasekhar, Bishen Singh
Bedi, E.A.S. Prasanna to S.
Venkataraghavan have re-
ceived special attention on
and off the cricket field.
After a lapse of couple of
seasons, the Indians are
now in the process of re-
discovering this art through
a now crop of young bowl-
ers. The greatest Indian
bowler, how-
ever, is un-
d o u b t e d l y
Kapil
Dev
from
Har-
yana.
With
speed
be-
coming
the
major aspect
of the bowling
armoury
of
most of the
world cricket
teams,
Kapil
Dev lent a
new dimen-
sion to Indian bowling since his debut for India against Pakistan at
Faislabad on 16th October, 1978. Perhaps, the first genuine fast/
medium fast bowler produced by India, Kapil Dev has become the
best bowler in terms of wickets claimed in Test cricket. Kapil Dev
in the beginning of 1994 overhauled the 431 ‘Test’ wickets tally es-
tablished by New Zealand’s Richard Hadlee. Kapil Dev has also
proved his prowess with the bat and has been ranked among the top
all rounders of the world.
The Indian domestic cricket now has an organised format with
the Board of Control for Cricket in India and its affiliated associa-
tions at the helm of affairs. The tournaments conducted at the
various levels under different categories beginning from the school
level culminate in the Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Irani Trophy and
Deodhar Trophy matches at the national level.
The second visit of the MCC team in 1933/34 to India under the
captainship of Douglas Jardine made the Indian board realise the
need for a tournament on a national basis. The idea began to gain
ground and the national championship was born in 1934 with the
Maharaja of Patiala agreeing to donate the 500-pound trophy to
perpetuate the name of the great Ranji. The tournament was to be