CRICKET | Karnataka’s maiden Ranji Trophy title winners feted in a grand function

Celebrating Karnataka's historic 1973-74 Ranji Trophy win, with felicitation for team members and nostalgic anecdotes shared.

The golden jubilee of Karnataka’s maiden Ranji Trophy triumph (1973-74), that had broken Bombay’s 15-year stranglehold, was celebrated at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Wednesday, with a glittering felicitation function organised for the victorious team members.

On March 27, 1974 in Jaipur, Karnataka, led by the off-spin wizard EAS Prasanna, beat a strong Rajasthan side captained by Hanumant Singh by 185 runs to lift the first of eight Ranji Trophy titles.

The nostalgia-filled event on Wednesday was graced by Prasanna, G.R. Viswanath, B.S. Chandrasekhar, Brijesh Patel, Syed Kirmani, A.V. Jayaprakash, B. Sudhakar Rao, Sanjay Desai, S. Vijayprakash, B. Siddaramu, R. Arunkumar and B. Raghunath. Tributes were also paid to the three departed souls V.S. Vijay Kumar, B. Vijayakrishna and K. Lakshman.

“The win was very satisfying,” Prasanna recollected. “The likes of Kirmani, Jayaprakash, Vijayakrishna lifted their games and scored on a wicket [in the final] that was conducive to our kind of bowling. The Karnataka team may not have looked very good on paper, but we were very effective on the pitch.”

But much before Chandrasekhar bowled last man C.G. Joshi, the Karnataka team had slipped into a different kind of euphoria. On the rest day between the third and fourth days, members had partaken in Holi festivities and ingested Bhang, unknowingly.

“It took us two days to come down to earth [from the high],” Viswanath said, as the audience guffawed. “Everybody in the team was just laughing. But I had become very serious. The England tour was coming up, and I was a bit worried about that. I didn’t get runs in the final.