The world renowned Kanga league is back for Mumbai cricketers. Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) is set to kick off the 69th season of Dr HD Kanga League from Sunday, 24 July, 2016.
It is always a childhood dream for any Mumbai Cricketers to represent their club in Kanga league before commencing to play for the state or the country. Cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar and Pravin Amre all were part of such dreams. Kanga league is a platform which gives a cricketer, an opportunity to showcase his talent.
Anyone who is familiar with Mumbai Cricket would understand the importance of Sunday mornings in the Monsoon season. Khau Galli at cross maidan will soon be the place for all Mumbai cricketers where teams will hold a brief meeting while enjoying their cutting chai on Sundays. It is a ritual for a player, umpire, observer, club officials and MCA officials to spend their Sunday on the field, performing their respective duties & responsibilities and then team gets seven days to plan their strategy for next game on next holiday.
The romance of the Kanga League has been typified by the sheer enthusiasm of some of India’s leading Test cricketers to turn up for their clubs, irrespective of international schedules. Former Mumbai captain Milind Rege says, “I remember Sunil (Gavaskar) arriving from Heathrow (London) at 6am, dropping his luggage and joining me and Dilip Vengsarkar to play a Kanga League game. Today, that’s impossible. I had the privilege of playing against legends like Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar, and for us, it was a great opportunity to learn from them. Not just the way they played, but also how they conducted themselves.”
MCA is relived as Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) agreed to postpone their project till the end of the Kanga League which means 12 pitches at Azad Maidan won’t get affected and it has given green signal to MCA to finalize the fixture of Kanga league for this season.
The wet and soft pitches in Monsoon will definitely test the skills of the batsmen and cricket pundits have always considered Kanga league as a big reason to justify why Mumbai produced so many batsmen with excellent techniques. Kanga League is like a board exam for a batsman and even if he gets to score 30 or 40 runs, it would be considered equivalent to a century on any other day. In such conditions everyone involved in the game would have to be on their toes, irrespective whether one is a batsman, bowler, fielder or an umpire.
