Karnataka - The dominant team of the last 25 years

For a team which for long had the `always the bridesmaid, never the bride' tag, Karnataka have come a long way in the last 25 years. During this period, Karnataka have won the Ranji Trophy six times and have been runners up three times. Starting from their first triumph at Udaipur in 1973-74, Karnataka have repeated the feat in 1977-78, 1982-83, 1995-96, 1997-98 and 1998-99. In addition, they have come within a match of winning the trophy in 1974-75, 1978-79 and 1981-82.

And yet it was not always like this. In the first place, for almost 40 years, the side played in the national competition as Mysore and not as Karnataka. Indeed, the name of the state was changed in 1973 and within a few months, Karnataka had dethroned 15 times in a row champion Bombay in a memorable semifinal at Bangalore. They then proceeded to make the long trip to Udaipur to play Rajasthan in the title round, but it was a worthwhile journey for they returned with the Ranji Trophy.

In the second place, Mysore's record was not in keeping with the natural talent that their top players undoubtedly possessed. They started their Ranji Trophy journey in a nightmarish manner losing to Madras within a day at Chepauk in November 1934. In the initial years, they were generally at the receving end at the zonal level itself, though they did make one early entry into the final in 1941-42 but were outplayed by Bombay. Then in 1945-46, they were responsible for a dubious record when Holkar hit 912 for eight against them. As many as six Holkar batsmen helped themselves to centuries.

Throughout the fifties, Mysore remained a good side, strong enough to even top the South Zone table but they repeatedly faltered when it came to the crunch matches. In 1959-60 however there came a major breakthrough when they made it to the title round after 18 years and even though they lost the final to a formidable Bombay side by an innings, there were distinct signs that cricket in the state was turning the corner.

Sure enough, in the sixties Mysore took the first steps towards the title which they finally won early in the following decade. They continued to have this mental block when playing Bombay, a disturbing trait which also engulfed the two other leading states in the South Zone, Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad. But in the always tough South Zone, they won the championship in 1963-64, 1965-66, 1966-67, 1968-69 and 1969-70. Each time they lost in the semifinal, three times to Bombay and once each to Rajasthan and Bengal. More importantly however, a nucleus of a Ranji Trophy winning side had been formed. Throughout the decade, the batting of V Subramanyam, PR Ashokanand, S Nazareth, BK Kunderan, KR Rajagopal, Najam Hussain and GR Viswanath and the bowling of Deepak Das Gupta, Prasanna and Chandrasekhar saw to it that Mysore were now being treated as serious contenders for the trophy.

For much of the sixties, Subramanyam had led Mysore creditably but at the dawn of the new decade he migrated to Australia and was replaced by Prasanna. In 1971-72 Mysore again lost in the penultimate round to Bombay. But two years later the jinx was finally broken. Prasanna and Chandrasekhar were still around but most of the old batting stalwarts had disappeared. However if anything Karnataka had become stronger for by now players like Brijesh Patel, Syed Kirmani, AV Jayaprakash, B Vijayakrishna, Sudhakar Rao and VS Vijayakumar had been discovered. The peerless Viswanath was still there and all this led to Karnataka's golden period.

Or perhaps one should say the first golden period. For, a second golden period was just round the corner. In the 80s, even as Prasanna and Chandrasekhar retired, new players were unearthed in Raghuram Bhat, Carlton Saldhana and K Jeshwant. Patel continued to be the monarch of the domestic circuit and by the time he quit, he had set the records of most runs and most centuries in the Ranji Trophy. And Viswanath too was not far behind when he called it a day after the 1987-88 season.

Of course in the nineties there was an avalanche of fine cricketers from the state. From `Bombay cricket is Indian cricket' it was now `Karnataka cricket is Indian cricket'. The roll call came fast and thick - Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad, Rahul Dravid, Sunil Joshi, David Johnson, Dodda Ganesh, Vijay Bhardwaj. And going by the upward swing in the State's cricketing fortunes, there seems little doubt of this trend being arrested very soon.