Duleep Trophy: Andhra’s Anantapur town eager to welcome cricket stars
September 04,2024Mumbai: Indian cricket matches invariably draw crowds only if they involve the national men’s team while domestic games in big cities are played before empty stands. Spectator interest perks up appreciably once domestic matches are taken to smaller towns.
Crowd support is what journeyman cricketers long for. Rising stars look forward to a change in the monotony of playing before empty stands by performing in front of packed houses.
The weekend provided a promising prelude to this week’s Duleep Trophy. Huge crowds gathered at the gates of the Anantapur cricket ground; leaning over the barricades, they pushed them down in the melee just to lay their hands on the passes on offer. If the enthusiasm is anything to go by, the Duleep Trophy season-opener starting in this Andhra Pradesh town on National Highway 44, linking Hyderabad and Bengaluru, on Thursday should generate all the attention domestic cricket craves.
Simultaneously, leading stars Shubman Gill, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant, among others, will be playing in another Duleep tie at Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium. It’s unlikely that the storied venue will see anywhere near the fan mania Anantapur promises to whip up.
So what if Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are giving the tournament a miss. India T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav is also sidelined due to injury. But Ruturaj Gaikwad’s India C taking on Shreyas Iyer’s India D will do for Ricky, a college student in Anantapur district. Ricky and friends “can’t wait” for a proper live cricket experience for the first time. Iyer’s team will include Andhra’s KS Bharat, who only six months back was playing for India.
There’s a case to take more domestic cricket to Tier 2 and 3 towns. “Provided the infrastructure is good. That’s what Anantapur has,” says MSK Prasad, former India stumper and chief selector who hails from the state.
Prasad used to oversee cricket operations of Andhra Cricket Association (ACA). Towards the end of his playing career, Prasad recalls, the Andhra cricket team felt so much at home with Anantapur’s lively pitches that it became their preferred Ranji home venue. Between 2004-2013, Anantapur hosted 15 Ranji matches.
“I remember very well how our lead pacer Syed Shahabuddin would run through the opposition,” he said. “In one of the early matches, Zaheer Khan was playing for Baroda and there was no fencing at the ground. The crowds would merrily interrupt proceedings looking for autographs. From an aesthetic sense, the ground felt so good, as if you arrived from a desert (rest of the arid town) and entered paradise.”