Kanga Cricket League
| Administrator(s) | Mumbai Cricket Association |
|---|---|
| Cricket format | Two-Innings |
| Tournament format(s) | Round robin |
| Host(s) | Mumbai |
| Champions | Greater Mumbai Police Sports Club |
| Participants | 98 |
The Kanga Cricket League (officially the Dr. H. D. Kanga Memorial Cricket League) is a cricket competition in Mumbai, India, inaugurated in 1948. It is named after Hormasji Kanga, who played 43 First class cricket matches as an all-rounder, and was also a selector for the India national cricket team
The Kanga League was founded in 1948, and is held in Mumbai between July and October, during the Indian monsoon season. As such, the grounds are very unpredictable, and can often be very wet, meaning the ball can "stop, shoot, skid and swing - all in a day's play."Shishir Hattangadi has remarked that "If a batsman scored 30 or 50 runs, it would be considered equivalent to an 80 or a 100."Vijay Merchant has been suggested as the founder of the league, and the league was named after Bombay cricketer Hormasji Kanga. Kanga played five Test matches for India, and was the first Indian to score a double century in a first-class match. He also worked as the President of the Bombay Cricket Association and was the vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
The league has featured many Indian Test cricketers, including Buck Divecha, Dattu Phadkar and Sunil Gavaskar. Aged 11, Sachin Tendulkar appeared in the league representing John Bright Cricket Club, and in 1985-86, he played the whole season aged 12. Sachin's son Arjun made his Kanga League debut aged 13 in 2013.Bombay and Indian Test batsman Madhav Apte played in every Kanga League between 1948 and 2002, and wicket-keeper Mehli Irani played in the Kanga League for 50 years, retiring at the age of 68.Zaheer Khan debuted in the 1996 Kanga League aged 18, and bowled 10 consecutive maiden overs in a match. In a Kanga League Division A match in November 2014, Pardeep Sahu took all ten wickets in an innings, becoming the fourth bowler to do so in the league. The 2013 and 2014 Kanga Leagues were scheduled at the end of the monsoon season, but the league was moved back into the monsoon season in 2015.
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