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The Kar that drives Indian cricket

by RajaB

Before I get to some hard facts, let me put some disclaimers up front

a) Discrediting or tarnishing greats from Mumbai is not my aim (through this post). Am just trying to clear some air

b) Being a student of Indian cricket history for a while now, I fully respect and acknowledge the laurels that illustrious Mumbai cricketers have brought to the BCCI and to the Indian cricket fan

c) Personally, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and Sunil Manohar Gavaskar would probably rank among the crème de la crème of world cricket, and they are from Mumbai

Now to some hard facts

i) There is a notion in Indian cricket that Bombay or Mumbai drives the Indian cricket. Any student of Indian cricket history would agree with this notion. The Pentangular, which could be termed the grandfather of Indian domestic cricket or Indian competitive cricket is from Bombay.

ii) BCCI the mother of cricket in India and the big brother of world cricket today is based at Bombay.

iii) If you asked a non Indian cricket fan for 3-4 Indian cricketing venues, Bombay or Mumbai would probably among the first two they say.

All these apart, there are also a couple of misnomers like the Mumbai players have always steered Indian cricket. More specifically the “Kar's” drive Indian cricket.

I would beg to differ with those who say that the Kar’s drive Indian cricket. For they have been lucky enough on two counts.

a) Being born in Bombay or Mumbai

b) Being part of a golden or at least a bronze era of Indian cricket where there were a couple of others (bowlers or batsmen) who would support them

Just to illustrate those two supposedly outrageous statements I’ve just made are some statistics.

Shown below is the list of the top 20 run makers for India in test cricket




I have purposely left Polly Umrigar out of the calculations, this great man played for Gujarat & the Parsees other than representing Bombay.

So we are now talking about the top 19

We have 7 from Bombay and 12 from the rest of India.

This is a summary of what we see

1) The 7 players from Bombay played an average of 151 innings among them as opposed to 147 when it came to the rest of India players (this is in spite of the ROI players playing more tests than the Bombay players)

2) ROI players have scored more runs than the Mumbai players

3) ROI players have the record for the top 3 highest scores

4) ROI players have scored more hundreds & fifties than the players from Bombay

5) Bombay players have scored 54% of the ducks scored by the top 20 (19)

The mosaic shown above tells you more than these 4-5 points I have mentioned.

One very important thing it tells us is this…

Kar’s may come and Kar’s may go

May be we don’t get anything like these two great models of Kar’s anymore

But Indian cricket would go on for ever

It is not the Kar’s who drive Indian cricket, it is the Indian cricket which drives everyone

Stats courtesy cricinfo.com

4 comments:

Gaurav Sethi said...

Raja, leave the numbers aside, in that list are two names, they run cricket in India. That’s both perception and reality. Then look at the numbers, and there are again two names, that are the most prolific. Guess there's a tad more perception there, but that is the reality.

Y'kno more than the batsman in there, like Jumbo’s appearance at 20, who would have thought.

Homer said...

"I would beg to differ with those who say that the Kar’s drive Indian cricket. For they have been lucky enough on two counts.

a) Being born in Bombay or Mumbai

b) Being part of a golden or at least a bronze era of Indian cricket where there were a couple of others (bowlers or batsmen) who would support them"

Lucky to be born in Mumbai, yes but there is that tiny little fact that you missed - Mumbai batsmen are taught since the first time they hold the bat that they have to value their wickets.. "Khadoos" is not a term associated with any other school of batsmanship in the country.

And golden or bronze or platinum, how does that argument not apply to the rest of India's batsmen?

One other thing - Manjrekar played for India, Andhra, Bengal, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh.Borde never played for Mumbai.

"
It is not the Kar’s who drive Indian cricket, it is the Indian cricket which drives everyone" - quick questiuon - tell me how many Mumbaikars are plying their trade for other teams in the Ranji Trophy and how many non MUmbaikars are playing for Mumbai.

And isnt it shameful that 30 square mlles of territory with a combined population of around 20 million trumps a geography many magnitudes that and a population of a billion plus.

And I haven't even mentioned where we stand on the Ranji stakes..Or how often we have beaten RoI in the Irani.

Maybe it is time for the rest of the country to do its bit.. Or is the country so used to propping itself on Mumbai's back that it is incapable of doing so?

Yenjie said...

Its not about the numbers. Can anybody imagine Indian Cricket without SMG and SRT? Also, on that Top 20 list, there are 7 batsmen from 1 city, Mumbai, and then 3 each from Delhi and Bangalore. If one city contributes 35% of your top batting, thats a dynasty any way you look at it. The fact that there is even a Mumbai v ROI comparision is a telling fact in itself. With any other city in India you do not need to make that comparision.

K said...

Forget the past guys. The question is, what does Mumbai have to offer in the future or even the present. After Tendulkar is done and dusted, who next?

Did I hear Rohit Sharma? The guy who struggles with the short ball, a problem that top Mumbai batsmen of the past never faced.

Thankfully, the over-rated Agarkar is finally out of the reckoning. The Bombay Duck's presence in the national team for so many years was one of the biggest mysteries of Indian cricket. Well done Chika.

Besides Tendlya, Zak is the only cricketer representing Mumbai in the current squad but he is not a Mumbaikar. He only started playing for Mumbai about four years back.

Now Munaf, another converted Mumbaikar is always on the fringe of selection.

So who next(home-grown Mumbai cricketer)?