Nawanagar was an Indian princely state in the region of Kathiawar, located on the southern shores of the Gulf of Kutch. It was ruled by the Jadeja dynasty until 1948 when it became a part of newly formed India. The district is now known as Jamnagar. Its rules were the mighty Hindu Rajputs. From here came the famous cricketer and ruler - Jam Saheb Ranjitsinhji after whom the premier Cricket tournament is named. There is another domestic tournament – the Duleep Trophy, earlier a prestigious one played between teams representing geographical zones of India [ 5 : South; North; West; East and Central]. Named after Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji of Nawanagar (also known as "Duleep") – for long was the platform for National selection. The competition was started by the Board of Control for Cricket in India in the 1961–62 season. The inaugural tournament was won by West Zone who defeated South Zone in the final by 10 wickets.
A cricket ball is not a perfect sphere. The seam of the ball is the circular stitching which joins the two halves of the cricket ball. Hence, the seam joining the pieces of leather is circumferential and the stitching is noticeably raised.
Away, there has been lot of talk of using the pink ball -
Australia trialled night sessions using the pink ball during the domestic
Sheffield Shield season and mooted
hosting a first day-night test against New Zealand. After Kerry Packer-promoted Pyjama cricket –
coloured uniforms, white ball, floodlit daynight one-day matches in 1977 –
cricket is now headed for day-night Tests. Though there are reports
suggesting that the overwhelming majority of players believe the pink
Kookaburra ball isn't yet ready for test cricket- for the reason that it goes
soft very quickly, does not swing and seam and more importantly does not
‘reverse-swing’ – it is all happening in Greater Noida in India.
From a premier
tournament catapulting players to National honours, Duleep Trophy has gradually
steeped towards insignificance. The 2013-14 final was washed out with just a
handful of overs bowled because of incessant rain and a wet outfield.
Allotting
Kochi the match during the peak monsoon season spoke of the tournament's
irrelevance … now at Greater Noida, teams named India Red, India Green, India
blue are facing real test in 2016 edition.
The matches are to
be played by trialling the pink ball under lights before hosting a day-night
Test.
While the latest innovation has been ruled out for the home series
against New Zealand, the success of this season's Duleep Trophy could be a
significant step towards hosting India's inaugural pink ball Test in the near
future. For the players though, the
focus will largely be on getting acquainted to the pink ball under lights. The
ball being used isn't the traditional SG ball used for games in India. Instead,
in comes the Kookaburra from Australia while SG continues to test out their
variant of the pink ball.
pic credit : aajtak
Kookaburras (genus Dacelo) are terrestrial tree kingfishers
native to Australia and New Guinea. The name is a loanword, onomatopoeic of its
call. The kookaburra's loud call sounds like echoing human laughter. The
Australia men's national field hockey team have the nickname ‘kookaburras’
Have read that the finals of
1975 Duleep trophy was played between South Zone and North Zone at Chepauk,
Madras. SZ were ably led by Srinivasan
Venkatraghavan. Batting first South made
390; Brijesh Patel scored a century; V Krishnaswamy made 50; Michael Dalvi,
Roger Binny, Gundappa Vishwanath all made 40s.
Mohinder Amarnath, Madanlal, Bishan Bedi, Shukla, Vinay Lamba were the
bowlers ~ most successful was Rajinder Singh Goel who took 7/98. For North Chetan Chauhan and Venkat Sundaram
opened; Surinder Amarnath made an unbeaten 122;
as they were all 0ut for 291. Chandra took 5/70. In the 2nd, other than Viswanath
none scored, as SZ were bundled out for 134.
Bedi and Goel took 5 each, while
Goel’ s figures were 25.1-11-36-5. North were bowled out for 196 as South won
by 37 runs. Venkat broke the middle with
5/62.
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
23rd Aug 2016.
