Mumbai
The Kanga Cricket League, one of the oldest cricket tournaments in Mumbai, will be a doubtful starter this year. According to the sources in Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), this might be for the first time that the prestigious cricket league gets cancelled since its inception in the year 1948.
“Over a 100 teams participate in this tournament every year and play in a round-robin league basis but sadly, the tournament might be called off," said an official on the conditions of anonymity after the Managing committee met here on Monday. This cricket competition in Mumbai was inaugurated in the year 1948 and has been named after Hormasji Kanga.
Kanga played first-class cricket for the Parsis’ cricket team between 1899 and 1921 as an all-rounder and opening batsman. He was the first Indian to score a double hundred in a first-class match.
In another move, the MCA has also deferred the appointment of the Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC) members.
“This has been differed and it will be the call of the managing committee to take a call on this issue,” said the official. And he went on to say that, we (Apex) have been told that it was the right of the Managing Committee and not us,” stressed the official.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai cricket season is likely to start from September end after the BCCI gave a clearance. “The season is likely to start from September-October as we have got the go-ahead from the BCCI,” the official said.
About Kanga league...
When Mumbai was still Bombay, batsmen of the calibre of Vijay Merchant, Polly Umrigar, Vijay Manjrekar, Dilip Sardesai, Ajit Wadekar, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sandeep Patil, Sanjay Manjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli and many others earned their spurs playing in the city’s monsoon league. It was baptism by fire for young dilettantes, and bowlers, especially the pacy ones, enjoyed making them smell leather. Remember, there were no helmets or chest guards then. Those days, Mumbai possessed many batsmen who could have easily worn the country’s colours but were overlooked because of the city’s over abundant batting talent.
The monsoon league of the city, better known as the Dr. H D Kanga League played a major role in the grooming of batsmen and making fighters out of them. The wet, and sometimes cruel, drying, wickets in the league put promising batsmen on trial like nothing else did.
