Mumbai cricket team
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The Mumbai cricket team is a cricket team representing the city of Mumbai in Indian domestic cricket. It is the most successful team in the Ranji Trophy, India's top domestic cricket competition, with 37 titles, the most recent being in 2006-07. The team's home ground is the Wankhede Stadium in South Mumbai, near Churchgate railway station, Mumbai. The team comes under the West Zone designation. It was formerly known as the Bombay cricket team, but changed when the city was officially renamed from Bombay to Mumbai.
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[edit] Competition history
Mumbai is one of three teams located in the state of Maharashtra (the others being the Maharashtra cricket team and the Vidarbha cricket team), and have always competed as a separate team from the rest of the state. Despite this division which would normally weaken most teams, Mumbai have become India's most successful domestic team.
Bombay won the first-ever Ranji Trophy competition in 1934-35 with Vijay Merchant starring in the final against Northern India. The title was retained the following season with a victory over Madras in the final. Bombay quickly showed themselves to be one of the strongest teams in the competition with 7 victories in the first 20 seasons of the Ranji Trophy.
However, it was during this period that their dominance was at its zenith. From 1955-56 to 1976-77, Bombay won 20 out of 22 titles including 15 in a row from 1958-59 to 1972-73. Bombay continued to regularly reach the Ranji Trophy final up to the mid 1980s.
The later half of the 1980s was Bombay's least successful period with no final appearances in 5 consecutive seasons. However, they were able to regain some of their former glory from the 1990s onwards winning an additional 6 Ranji Trophies from 1993-94 to 2003-04 under the new name of Mumbai.
In 2006-07, Mumbai won their 37th Ranji Trophy with victory over Bengal in the final at Wankhede Stadium. This win was particularly memorable as the team had recovered from the setbacks of losing their first three games, and being reduced to 0/5 in the semi-final against Baroda.
Mumbai's dominance of the Ranji Trophy has led to many consecutive appearances in the Irani Trophy with much success including 15 wins. However, they have failed to beat the Rest of India team since 1998.
[edit] Famous players
The team is known for its batting and spin bowling and has produced many of the Indian cricket team's top batsmen over the years. Some of the players who have appeared in the national team include:
- Ajit Agarkar
- Pravin Amre
- Sairaj Bahutule
- Sameer Dighe
- Sunil Gavaskar
- Karsan Ghavri
- Wasim Jaffer
- Vinod Kambli
- Nilesh Kulkarni
- Abey Kuruvilla
- Vijay Hazare
- Sanjay Manjrekar
- Ashok Mankad
- Vinoo Mankad
- Vijay Merchant
- Sudhir Naik
- Suru Nayak
- Chandrakant Pandit
- Sandeep Patil
- Lalchand Rajput
- Balwinder Sandhu
- Dilip Sardesai
- Rohit Sharma
- Ravi Shastri
- Eknath Solkar
- Sachin Tendulkar
- Polly Umrigar
- Dilip Vengsarkar
- Ramesh Powar
- Zaheer Khan
[edit] Current squad
2006-07 Ranji Trophy Super League squad [1]
- Amol Muzumdar (c)
- Ajit Agarkar
- Swapnil Hazare
- Sahil Kukreja
- Nilesh Kulkarni
- Vinayak Mane
- Sushant Marathe
- Wilkin Mota
- Mudeep Mungela
- Abhishek Nair
- Ramesh Powar
- Vinayak Samant (wk)
- Hiken Shah
- Rohit Sharma
- Bhavin Thakkar
- Rajesh Verma
- Kshemal Waingankar
- Sachin Tendulkar
- Zaheer Khan
- Ajinkya Rahane
[edit] Mumbai Cricket Association
The Mumbai Cricket Team is led by the Mumbai Cricket Association, which has established its home ground the Wankhede Stadium, an international cricket ground. The President of the Mumbai Cricket Association, Sharad Pawar, is also president of the BCCI.
[edit] References
| Indian first class cricket teams in the Ranji Trophy |
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| Andhra Pradesh | Assam | Baroda | Bengal | Delhi | Goa | Gujarat | Haryana | Himachal Pradesh | Hyderabad | Jammu and Kashmir | Jharkhand | Karnataka | Kerala | Madhya Pradesh | Maharashtra | Mumbai | Orissa | Punjab | Railways | Rajasthan | Saurashtra | Services | Tamil Nadu | Tripura | Uttar Pradesh | Vidarbha |
