JOIN US The celebrations to mark Karnataka State Cricket Association’s Platinum Jubilee came to a conclusion with a grand, colourful function here at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday.
Discussions involving past and current stars on various cricketing aspects, entertainment segments and felicitation of cricketers, umpires, scorers and ground staff lent a fitting finale to the week-long event that began last Saturday.
In a meticulously planned programme, the discussions on fast bowling (Sir Richard Hadlee, Javagal Srinath, Venketesh Prasad and Roger Binny), art of captaincy and batting (Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and former Karnakata skipper V Subramanya) and spin bowling (EAS Prasanna, BS Chandrashekar, Bishan Singh Bedi and Anil Kumble) were the highlights of the day.
The chief guest of honour ning, Hadlee set the tone, taking a friendly jibe at Australuans. “I am a Kiwi, not an Australian, so my accent would be a little different. The one difference between the Kiwis and the Aussies is that we speak better English. And the other difference is when it comes to pronouncing six. Whereas we say six with an ‘i’ in the middle, the Aussies say with an ‘e’ in the middle!”, he said sending the audience into peels of laughter. The function began with the lighting of lamp by Karnataka governor Hansraj Bhardwaj and State home minister KJ George.
The awardees: Former cricketers: Kengal Thimmaiah, Vittal Rao MB, VR Venkoba Rao, KV Chandrashekar, KC Reddy, T Thimmaiah, VR Chander, DP Medh, KS Vishwanath, ER Badrinath, D Dasgupta, G Vishandas, M Naveen Chandra.
Administrators: KM Ramprasad, Srikantadatta Narsimharaja Wadiyar, V Jaganath, HS Puttakempanna, Dr HC Keshavadas, PS Vishwanath, Dr Sadananda Maiya, SK Ramadyani, Tallam Venkatesh.
Former Karnataka captains: K Vasudeva Murthy, G Kasturi Rangan, Dr S Krishnamurthy, PR Ashokanand, VS Vijay Kumar, AV Jayaprakash, K Jeshwanth, PV Shashikanth, J Arun Kumar, RL Barrington, KT Yeregoud.
India captains: Chandu Borde, Ajith Wadekar, Bishan Singh Bedi, GR Vishwanath, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Md Azaruddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble.
Women India captains: Shanta Rangaswamy, Mamata Maben, Pramila S Bhatt.
Karnataka internationals: V Subramanya, BS Chandrashekar, EAS Prasanna, Syed Kirmani, Brijesh Patel, R Sudhakar Rao, Roger Binny, Raghuram Bhat, Sadananda Vishwanath, Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad, Sunil Joshi, Vijay Bharadwaj, Sujith Somasunder, Dodda Ganesh, David Johnson, Robin Uthappa, Vinay Kumar, Abhimanyu Mithun.
Internatnal umpires: D Satyaji Rao, BR Keshavamurthy, Vikram Raju, AL Narasimhan, VN Kulkarni, BK Sadashiva, Shavir Tarapore, Hanumantha Rao.
Karnataka 75+ caps: B Vijaya Krishna, VS Thilak Naidu
Statisticians and scorers: HR Gopalkrishna, C Keshavamurthy, Venkatesh Murthy, Krishnamurthy, SR Kavale, BG Subbanna.