In our defense

Yenjie asks "Where is the next 'batting-kar' for India? What's wrong with Bombay cricket that it is unable to produce the next successor of India's most famous Cricketing dynasty?"

Raja adds -

"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) "

I dont dispute either of these contentions. Both are fine writers who are meticulous and will back their talk with the requisite data.

My question is this - Granted that Mumbai's batsman ship is not what it used to be and granted too that the Rest of the country is "better" than Mumbai.

So what explains this -

1999-00	Mumbai	Hyderabad
2000-01	Baroda	Railways
2001-02	Railways	Baroda
2002-03	Mumbai	Tamil Nadu
2003-04	Mumbai	Tamil Nadu
2004-05	Railways	Punjab
2005-06	Uttar Pradesh	Bengal
2006-07	Mumbai	Bengal
2007-08	Delhi	Uttar Pradesh
2008-09	Mumbai	Uttar Pradesh

We are not as good as we once were. but even now, we trump all others... Khadoos is not just about batsmanship my friends, it is a way of life.

And now is a good time as any for the rest of the nation to imbibe it.

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The Kar that drives Indian cricket

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

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Where is the next 'batting-kar' for India?

(Yenie's comment at "It's not just the little things that make Gavaskar and Tendulkar similar)

SMG and SRT together have given Indian Cricket an enduring legacy and also held the standard of Bombay cricket flying high in the Indian team for almost 4 decades. As long as I have been watching Cricket, there has been a tough as nails run hungry Bombay batsman at the top of the Indian batting order - more often than not carrying the entire Indian batting. That is why I am surprised when people don't appreciate what a momentous change it will be when SRT finally hangs up his shoes. Where is the next Mumbai top order bat to carry the nation's hopes on his shoulders? Where is the next 'batting-kar' for India? What's wrong with Bombay cricket that it is unable to produce the next successor of India's most famous Cricketing dynasty?

by Yenjie

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