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Recalling Rajasthan Sports Club’s Kanga triumph
- Updated: June 26, 2016
In 1979, a year this journal was launched, another establishment emerged as a pronounce of a city in cricket circles. Rajasthan Sports Club, afterwards owned by a famous cricketing Rungta family of Jaipur, became a Dr H D Kanga Cricket League ‘A’ multiplication champions for a initial and usually time in 1979. It was utterly an feat for a group that worked a approach adult to a premier multiplication of a monsoon Sunday league, usually 3 years before to their crowning moment.
The Rajasthan Sports Club group that won a 1979 Kanga League A multiplication title, poise for a group sketch during a Brabourne Stadium in 1979. Standing (left to right): Kit child Kadam, Ninad Vengsarkar, Vinod Alva, Mulchand Savla, Rajan Shrivastav, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Lalchand Rajput, Raju Kulkarni, Uday Shirname, Dilip Sawant and Pradeep Raut. Sitting (left to right): Chintamani Vaidya, Suresh Shastri, Subhash Patne, Shashi Nayak, an aged male who served during bar owners PM Rungta’s office, GR Sunderam (captain), Prakash Shenai (manager), Suru Nayak and Sudhir Gawde. Missing in a photograph: Parthasarthy Sharma and Sunil Benjamin (both on first-class cricket duty). Pic courtesy: Pradeep Raut
The bar stage in a 1970s was dominated by Dadar Union Sporting Club of Gavaskar and Vengsarkar fame. Their four-year winning strain (1973 to 1976) was damaged by arch-rivals Shivaji Park Gymkhana in 1977. Dadar Union regained a ‘A’ multiplication streamer in 1978, though were stopped by Rajasthan in 1979.
Rajasthan comprised a few former Dadar Union players, all-rounders Shashi and Suru Nayak as good as pacer Subhash Patne, who total good with associate seamers, GR Sunderam, a former Test quick middle bowler and Balwinder Singh Sandhu, a destiny India pitch bowler. Raju Kulkarni, another Test bowler in a creation was in a squad, as was India’s destiny opening batsman Lalchand Rajput. Rajasthan also had a grand India batsman Parthasarthy Sharma, who was still personification first-class cricket for Rajasthan state and Central Zone.
The Nayak brothers assimilated Rajasthan SC from Dadar Union whom Patne represented as good in a late 1960s and early 1970s. Sandhu (59) remembers immature players like him latching on to any word ‘Parath’ Sharma spoke about batting generally opposite spin bowling. And pity a new round with maestro Sunderam, afterwards 49, gave immature Sandhu a high.
B Singh Sandhu. Pic/midday archives
“Mr Sunderam was utterly false and assertive even during that age. We had a gifted garland of cricketers and we were a shining fielding side. we don’t consider we forsaken a locate that year. Our captain always speedy us to flower on any small event to win,” recalls Sandhu, who continued to play for Rajasthan prolonged after he late from cricket. The 1983 World Cup-winning Sikh was in his initial deteriorate of a premier multiplication carrying formerly played for Sind Sports Club.
In a initial compare of their 1979 deteriorate on Jul 15, Sandhu (4 for 36) and Patne (5 for 47) bowled out United Cricketers for 90 and had a Cross Maidan bar to follow-on after Rajasthan scored 170 for 7 announced with immature gun Rajput scoring a half century. Against Parsi Cyclists on Aug 22, Sandhu claimed 10 wickets in a diversion to give Rajasthan their second undisguised win of a season.
The subsequent compare was opposite Shivaji Park Gymkhana during their outpost where Sandhu claimed 7 for 35 to play out a 1977 champions for 110. For Sandhu, this was a prominence of a League. “I would arrange this as my best opening since of a peculiarity of a antithesis and it was achieved on their turf. Claiming 4 wickets to assistance play out National Cricket Club for 12 came second,” says Sandhu, who remembers Patne and Kulkarni bowling good too during Cross Maidan where they clinched an undisguised win over a 1970 champions.
Picture of Pradeep Raut coaching kids as Sachin Tendulkar Gymkhana in Kandivli. Pic/Sameer Markande
Apart from his lethal pitch bowling, what Sandhu remembers many of his entrance deteriorate with Rajasthan is their late group manager Prakash Shenai. “He’s simply a best manager we have come across. He would call any actor a night before a diversion and explain what a group indispensable to do to win opposite a sold opponent. He knew what time we went to bed too. Since we always slept during 9 pm, he would call during 8.45 pm before any Rajasthan diversion and pronounce for usually 10 mins so that when we land adult during a belligerent subsequent morning, we knew accurately what was approaching of you. A lot of credit for a success should go to Shenai. He kept everybody on their toes. At a same time, we were relaxed. He was a outrageous contracting factor,” says Sandhu, a perspective common by all a Rajasthan players we spoke to.
On Sep 9, Rajasthan met Dadar Union during a PJ Hindu Gymkhana where a certain Sunil Gavaskar arrived for his favourite Sunday fixture. On Tuesday of that week, he strike an epic 221 opposite England during a Oval in London. Shashi remembers his group batting compartment tea-time, that according to Sandhu, did not go down good with Dadar Union captain Vasu Paranjape.
Shashi says, “We scored 252 and Gavaskar along with Ramnath Parkar responded good in a excellent 80-run opening partnership. He played some extraordinary shots along a ground, though was run out for 50 (by an underarm chuck from Suresh Shastri). Dadar Union mislaid 7 wickets for 157 runs for a diversion to finish in a draw. The extraordinary partial was that they went for a runs notwithstanding not carrying a lot of time. That is how Dadar Union played, always aggressively, always to win.” Incidentally, Rajasthan SC was a informed name to a afterwards India captain, Gavaskar as his father Manohar played and after managed this club.
A Jul 1979 writing from mid-day
Gavaskar left for Madras that really dusk to lead a Indian group in a opening Test opposite Australia. In a 6 days, that distant a Oval Test opposite England and a Madras Test opposite Kim Hughes Co, he still found time, appetite and a expostulate to play a Kanga League game. That’s how dear a League was to cricketers. That’s what Mumbai cricket was all about. That was Gavaskar!
A few weeks before that diversion during Hindu Gymkhana, Rajasthan clashed with Jolly Cricketers during Cross Maidan. Rajasthan’s tip sequence batsman Pradeep Raut remembers Jolly’s pacer Prabhakar Shetty bowling brief that forced him to go on a descent on a soppy National CC wicket. “I churned one and Madhav Apte fielding during brief excellent leg, was strike above a eye. Bleeding profusely, he pulled out his white handkerchief, wiped a blood off his face and asked us to continue a game. Our captain GR Sunderam had to remonstrate Apte to come in and even offering to margin for him. Ultimately, a Jolly surrogate ran out and Apte went to a circuitously hospital, got stitches and returned to bat for Jolly. We couldn’t trust it.”
Apte recalls: “I indeed crossed over to a Bombay Gymkhana, met my crony Dr Ajit Deodhar, who took me to Bombay Hospital where we perceived 3 to 4 stitches nearby my eyebrow.” Sep 17 saw a Sunderam father and son span paint their particular ‘A’ multiplication clubs in adjacent plots. Junior Sunderam bowled quick for Shivaji Park Gymkhana opposite Dadar Union in Mumbai cricket’s chronicle of conflict of a roses, father GR bowled with 5 to 6 stairs for Rajasthan opposite Shivaji Park Youngsters during Young Maharashtra CC. Pradeep helped fire out Dadar Union for 93 by his 7 for 45 match-winning spell and GR wrecked Shivaji Park Youngsters for 47 with 4 for 11 even as Sandhu claimed 5 for 28. Chasing 48 for feat incited out to be severe for Rajasthan. At 15 for 5 they were in a throes of adversity, though they scrambled home interjection to Sandhu’s 17.
Rajasthan Sports Club tip from an progressing season
It is singular for bar teams to be positive of a championship win even before personification a final of their joining games. Such was Rajasthan’s supremacy over a others that season. By a dusk of Sep 30, after Rajasthan had won a Kanga League with a diversion in palm after a pull opposite New Hind put them in an irrefutable position with 24 points. In respond to Rajasthan’s 158, New Hind finished adult with 47 for six. Five of those 6 wickets belonged to Sandhu.
A contributor during a diversion reckoned Rajasthan would have won had they scored during a faster rate progressing in a day, though they were though their star batsman Sharma, who was in Nagpur as captain of a Central Zone group for whom he scored 96 opposite a visiting Australian team.
The outcome of a final diversion opposite Cricket Club of India (CCI) didn’t matter, though Hemant Kenkre, who was Sachin Tendulkar’s initial premier multiplication bar captain, remembers Rajasthan winning and removing out to aged fox GR Sunderam. “After Sunderam sir bowled me a few inswingers and outswingers, a subsequent round straightened and we was rectilinear in front. we also remember his devious grin when he got me,” says Kenkre.
Rajasthan do not suffer ‘A’ multiplication standing anymore. Like other earlier challenging clubs, they now figure in a ‘C’ division. In improved days over 1979, they also fielded India stars like Vinod Kambli and Nayan Mongia, though their best performer by a years was pacer Pradeep who incited out frequently for Rajasthan after his army with Shivaji Park Gymkhana.
Unlike nowadays, a customary of Mumbai bar cricket was tip drawer and wicketkeeper Mobin Shaikh, who assimilated Rajasthan a following year, says, “Each of a 14 teams that figured in a ‘A’ multiplication in those days could kick any Ranji Trophy side.” Shaikh might have not been partial of Rajasthan’s category of 1979, though when an fast performer like him, who claimed a record 202 victims behind a stumps, says so, there’s good reason to trust him.